King and Lionheart
by Katowisp
Summary: All the attempts to stop Ragnarok were futile. Follows "Lonesome Traveler"
1. No One Knows Where the Soul Goes

Chapter I

So Let's Go Back to the Beginning

_If anyone can say with any sort of certainty that there is something to believe._

_Did you ever think that we'd be three steps from the ledge?_

_Contemplating awful things and thinking about the end?_

_Nobody mentioned that the pieces wouldn't fit,_

_You can rearrange them all you want, but the puzzle; it was rigged._

_We swore we'd never stray, _

_right before we went our separate ways._

_And now we're looking back, _

_we're second guessing all the choices that we made._

-With Any Sort of Certainty—Toh Kay

Steve was no stranger to nightmares. When he was a child, he'd wake up in a sweat from some unknown horror, breath catching in lungs that refused to function as they should.

His mother, who had something of a sixth sense when it came to his nightmare and asthma attacks, would be there almost as soon as he woke, rubbing menthol on his chest and singing to him until he went back to sleep.

When she'd died, he dreamed that she still lived. In those dreams, they still owned their brownstone home, his father was still alive, and the ills of Depression-era New York City were far away.

Steve would wake to find his parents were still dead, his stomach still grumbling from hunger, and his lungs still refusing to work.

In those days, living was the nightmare, and only sleep offered respite from the wearying routine of his daily life.

He'd dreamed for seventy years, but in those dreams, he never woke. He hadn't even known he was dreaming.

When he finally woke to the 21st century and could sleep again, he dreamed only of ice.

Since returning from Niflheim, he dreamed of fire, and death, and the Howling Commandos. He knew, intrinsically, that these were more than simple figments of his subconscious—it was his brain trying to make sense of the things he'd seen when he was dead.

But Steve did not care to remember the things that haunted him just beyond the periphery, so he took to wandering the halls of Stark's tower late at night, when the team was asleep. He tried to draw the things he remembered when he _did_ dream, but his drawings frightened him. They were full of ghouls and skeletons and trees that could move and were then burned to death, the souls caught in them screaming as the fire charred what little of them was left.

He drew black rivers occupied by swollen corpses. In his dreams, he was caught in the oily water, and hands grabbed at him, and if he were caught, he'd be dragged down into the murky depths.

Through it all, the Howling Commando's were beside him, and so he drew them, too. Dum Dum was doing the sidestroke in the black river.

"I was best in my county at backstroke. Even made it to State!" He'd said in Steve's dream.

Steve hoped that if he walked until his feet dragged, if he drew until his hand ached and his eyes grew bleary and heavy, that he would be too exhausted to dream.

He was wrong.

Days blurred into weeks. The captain became so exhausted that he hardly had the fortitude to drag himself out of the room to grab something to eat. He began relying on protein bars he stashed in his room.

The team looked just as bad, if not worse, than he felt. When he came into a room they were in, their chattering would cease and they'd look at him and plaster false smiles on their faces and ask about benign things.

He was lonely, but he was weary of their false cheer; of the notion that he'd break if they said something wrong, so he stopped seeking them out.

It was on a Tuesday morning, several hours before dawn, and a month since their return, that Steve heard a knock on his door. He looked up from his sketchbook, occupied by black lines and black creatures, and stared at the door. Nobody had shadowed his door since the team's return, but he'd not realized it until now.

"Come in," Steve said finally, voice scratchy from disuse.

Loki entered, looking first at the captain before glancing around the room, his face pinching as though he'd eaten something unpleasant as he took in the disorganized state of Steve's affairs.

Steve had stopped making his bed; he'd taken to crumbling up and throwing the drawings of some of his more disturbed memories onto the floor. His trash had overflowed within the first week, but he refused to allow Tony's bots to come in. There was something about the way they moved that resonated wrongly in his soul, disturbed memories he wasn't ready to remember.

"Captain Steve Rogers, you are in a sorry state," Loki said, knocking one of Steve's undershirts on the floor before settling into the chair he'd come to claim as his own.

Steve looked around his room, becoming embarrassed by the condition it was in. He ran a hand through his hair and felt the oil glom to his palm. He reminded himself to take a shower, realizing he didn't remember the last time he had, and knew it was too long.

"You're looking well," Steve said, and he was. There was a bounce to Loki's step that he'd had never had before—his shoulders were a little straighter, his head held a little higher.

"For the first time since I was a child, I am free," Loki said. "And I have you to thank."

Steve laughed dryly, but there was no humor in it.

Loki frowned, and he glanced at the sketchbook laid open on Steve's desk. Pencils and charcoal were strewn across the surface, eraser dust prevalent. Steve had been in the middle of drawing the black cliff that he'd climbed. It had shifted and thrust blades of rock into his flesh, pulling muscle from bone, but if he fell, the hungry ghosts in the oily river below would've ripped him apart, so giving up hadn't been an option.

Jim had been there to see him through, and Colonel Phillips had waited at the top, urging him onwards.

"You are drawing your memories," Loki stated, foregoing any small talk, and Steve was thankful for that. He wasn't sure he could stomach talking about the weather or the fake platitudes his team was giving him, when he saw them at all. "You don't understand what you saw. It is coming to you in pieces."

"Every night," he admitted, "I remember more. None of it makes sense."

Loki nodded, looking at the sketchbook on Steve's desk. "I had hoped that your memories would never return to you. You would be better off for it, had they not."

"Yeah," Steve agreed, closing his sketchbook. He looked at the god. "Can you tell me what happened?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. There was a sharp pain that had developed behind his right eye, and the lid had taken to twitching. He rubbed it with the heel of his palm.

"Everybody's walking on eggshells around me, and Bruce is gone, but nobody's told me where he's gone _to_."

"Well—that part is easy. I am not sure of the exact mechanics, but Banner found a means to escape Niflheim to venture onto the branches of Yggdrasil. How he managed to leave or why Hel let him go is unknown. My mother is convinced that when he is ready to return, he will."

"Traveling the branches-like we did?"

"We traveled in distinct realms of each branch, worlds, you might say. But the tree is not a metaphor—it is a literal tree that connects the nine realms. There are places between those realms, and I suspect that is where he has gone. There is immeasurable knowledge to be learned from traveling those lands."

"You think he'll come back with the secrets of the universe?" Steve asked with a weak grin.

"If the knowledge doesn't break him-" Loki drummed his fingers on the armrest thoughtfully, "-then some of them, at least."

Steve sobered. He had not enjoyed his own travels, and he feared what Bruce was facing alone.

"You did this," Steve accused. "All of it. Bruce wouldn't be alone in the universe if you hadn't done what you did. The team wouldn't have had to travel in Niflheim and I—" he trailed off before starting again, leveling Loki with a glare. "Why did you leave me to die in that alley?"

He'd played that night over a thousand times in his head. He'd tried to suss out what he'd done to earn Loki's sudden aggression, but he'd not figured it out, and in a lot of ways, that was worse.

"Did you know she was coming? Skadi."

"No," Loki said. "Would it matter?"

"Yes," Steve admitted. "It would mean you did not leave me to be killed."

Loki's clear green eyes slid away from Steve's, as if he could not bear the weight of his gaze. "What do you remember, from Niflheim?"

"You asked me that a month ago."

"The question remains."

Steve nodded; relieved to talk about the things that haunted them, as if verbalizing them would free him.

"Just bits and pieces. There was a black river, filled with bloated corpses that reached for me. On the far side, there was a golden shore where my parents and friends waited. And there was a... a woman—" Steve shook his head. "But I don't know why she was there. They called me to come home, and I wanted to. I waded into the water and began swimming towards them, and the black waters opened up, allowing me to swim easily."

"Why didn't you cross over, then? I had not known gateways existed between religions."

"Just before I climbed onto the golden sands, I noticed a green light that shot out from my chest into the dark lands, and I knew it was you, and-" he trailed off. "I turned away from Heaven so I could find you. The Howling Commando's came with me."

"And what followed?"

"Once I'd turned away from the shores, the waters closed in on me. The dead tried to drown me, but the team helped me surface. There was a black cliff I had to climb, and with each foot I climbed, the black rock shot through my skin. I could still see the shores of Jordan and I thought about-" He shook his head. "-But Colonel Phillips was at the top, telling me to get my ass up there."

"Colonel Phillips—" Loki began.

"He was my CO," Steve explained.

"I _know_ who he is. Was. I have never met such an infuriating and excruciatingly annoying man."

"You met him?" And Steve grinned briefly.

"So, you do not remember finding me? Our conversation in the cave?" Loki asked.

"No—after the cliff, there was a burning forest. By then, almost all of my muscle had been torn away, and I couldn't run fast enough to escape it. My body..." Steve could remember the smell of his own flesh burning away.

He'd tried to run as fast as he could, but it was though he was running through mud and he couldn't go fast enough. There had been faces in the trees, and they screamed as the fire climbed up the trunks of the trees, and then the trees, too, were howling.

"I don't remember a lot after that."

"Hel almost won you as her prize," Loki said. "You would've been lost forever."

Steve shuddered, his stomach shifting, and for a moment, he thought he might be sick, and he stared down at his hands. He moved them, if only to revel in the feeling of tendon and muscle sliding over bone and all of it exactly how it should be. He ran his thumb over the flesh of his palm.

In Niflheim, he'd not been sure he'd ever be whole again.

"I was a coward," the Jotunnsaid suddenly, and the captain looked up. "It became apparent to me that you had never mentioned in the Sagas of the Fates. I wrongly assumed you had died before the sisters three could care to add you. Instead of fighting my providence, I decided to be through with you so that when your time came to die, I would not have to see it. I did not know Skadi was coming. I..." Loki trailed off, finding sudden interest in the leather of his chair.

Steve digested the words.

He remembered with clarity his discussions with the Howling's Commandos. They could not understand why he'd turned away from paradise to trudge through the cursed realm of Hel's domain. At the time, he wasn't sure he'd known exactly why, either. Loki's betrayal was fresh in his mind, and he wanted to go to his mother so _badly_, to cavort with his friends forever on the golden shores.

He'd read the Sagas and he had seen the lost ghouls, and he knew that whatever Loki's reasoning for wounding him and abandoning him to face Skadi, he could not allow his bonded to face that damnable realm for an eternity.

If he had, he wouldn't have deserved paradise.

And Loki had come back for him when he'd lay dying; had taken him into his arms and carried him back to the Avengers. Steve didn't know what that meant, still didn't, but it didn't matter.

Loki had come back.

"You were afraid," Steve realized aloud. Loki prickled visibly at the words. "You think our friendship has made you weak."

"I have read the Sagas. I am to kill Heimdall and witness the murder of my parents and my brothers. I was meant to slaughter Balder. For a thousand years, I have sought to break myself free from those chains, but everything I did only brought me closer. I was Death in Tehran. I did not believe anything I did would change your fate."

"You met your destiny on the road you took to avoid it."

"Yes." Loki shifted in the chair. "But now I am free."

"You died because we are bonded."

Loki nodded.

"An act by your mother to ensure this would all happen."

Loki hesitated before nodding once more.

"So then, she is a woman deliberate in her actions."

"Yes," Loki agreed, his face freezing as he realized he'd stepped into a trap.

"So why did you lie to me?" Steve pressed, leaning forward. "You told me they adopted me purely for ceremonial purposes, but that's not true. I haven't known Frigga very long, but she doesn't strike me as the type of person to do things for the sake of ceremony."

Having been separated from his bonded for so long, Loki had forgotten how clever the man was. The Trickster was growing complacent, and if his suspicions were right, he needed to be more cunning than ever before.

But Steve had guessed things were awry, and Loki knew he couldn't face the future alone. What was more, Loki knew that he didn't have to.

"The sun is setting in Asgard," Loki said slowly. Steve's brow furrowed and he continued, "It is said that one of the first signs of Ragnarök is a long winter and the setting of the sun over the land. You may have noticed the land is in perpetual light, but upon our departure, the sun hung low in the sky."

"But it wasn't cold," the captain argued mildly.

"No," Loki agreed. "I am unsure what it means. In all of the stories, a three-year winter is the herald of the end days, so the setting may mean nothing at all. A simple anomaly."

"But you don't believe that."

"No," the god admitted reluctantly, "I do not."

"So, what do we do?"

"Perhaps nothing. The Sagas never mentioned the participation of humans in Ragnarök, but they have been erased, and so I no longer know what to anticipate."

"Loki—I am grateful you came here. But you didn't come to talk about Asgard''s weather. You've been beating around the bush all evening—why are you here?"

"It is true," Loki said. "I did not know how to broach the subject, but I suspect it does not matter. I will state it simply: while you have locked yourself away in your room, the team has begun to fall apart at the seams. You have the luxury of dealing with your memories incrementally, but they have no such reprieve. They remember everything and it's tearing them apart."

Steve looked down at his drawings. He had only considered the team abstractly, had barely thought of them at all while he was dealing with his nightmares. They'd endured so many things; he'd assumed they'd weather this, too. He'd been wrong, and guilt washed over him.

"I didn't know."

"They have nothing to focus on, no missions, no war, and so they're focusing on themselves. Romanov is feeling the loss of Bruce most acutely, I believe."

"I didn't know you paid attention to them." Steve began to wonder if Loki was just being observant, or if he'd begun to grow fond of the team. He thought it was probably the latter. The team had been distant in the beginning, but they'd given the god a second chance that his own people had never afforded him.

After all, the Avengers had come for them and rescued them both, and regardless of any outward expression of Loki's feelings on the matter, Steve knew it affected him more deeply than he was letting on. His people had known for a thousand years what his fate was meant to be, and there had been no mention of saving him from it.

"I have found her on the terrace every day since we returned, watching the horizon. I told her that Banner would return when he is ready. She continues in her activities regardless."

Steve digested the information, before he asked, "What about Clint?"

"As for Barton—he is building himself an arsenal of bows and ammo to match. He has become quite a bore: he can't be bothered for a game of cards."

"I imagine Tony has walled himself off in his garage."

"You imagine correctly."

"What about your brother? How's he doing?"

Loki looked pained.

"I believe his travels affected him more than he is willing to admit. He has a sickly look about him, and spends much of his time lounging in his room and watching soap operas."

Steve laughed before he realized his bonded was serious.

"Soap operas?" He echoed.

"Yes. He said he found them engaging."

"Well, we can't let that stand," Steve said lightly, pulling out a drawer so he could put his sketchbook inside. Leaning against the desk he crossed his arms and looked at the trickster god.

"I didn't know," he repeated again.

"Now you do." Loki stood. "So, fix them." He turned to leave.

"Loki," Steve called once the demigod had reached the door. "Why?"

Loki hesitated, his fingers drumming on the doorframe as he considered his reply.

"They bore me when they're so maudlin. The tower only has room for one brooding individual, and I am finding it cramped." He exited, leaving Steve alone in his room.

Steve stared at the door a long time, realizing that was Loki's way of saying he was lonely.

For obvious reasons, he was the only one that had come out the better in their situation, and Steve suspected he felt guilty for leaving Niflheim relatively unscathed. Whatever he had suffered for his brief stint was nothing compared to what he was _meant_ to suffer, and Loki knew it, and was better off for it.

But he was the only one.

Straightening his room so it was marginally better than the chaotic mess he'd allowed it to devolve to, Steve made his bed, and thought about what he planned to say to Natasha.

Guilt churned in his soul. How could he be their leader if he couldn't be bothered to leave his room? Bucky had always been able to identify when he'd been about to sink into one of his bouts of depression, and a day spent in the art museums or watching war films had usually been enough to pull him out. He'd called the fits "moodiness" and said it was just as well—there wasn't an artist in the world that didn't know how to be melodramatic.

After Bucky had died, there had been no one to fill his shoes, and Steve had to be particularly mindful when he felt the tendrils of his moodiness washed over him.

Loki had done what nobody since Bucky had done, and Steve didn't know how to feel about that.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Steve found Natasha on the terrace, as Loki had said she would be.

His raised gardens lay fallow—they'd been gone five months by earth's time, and he'd missed the chance to put any spring crops in the ground. Though it was a little late for watermelon and okra, he was sure he'd be able to get a pretty bountiful crop, and he was just in time to prepare for his fall harvest. He set a jar of sun tea on his workbench to brew in the hot sun.

Although the summer solstice was still a few weeks away, it was already unusually hot. Natasha's eyes were squinted against the sun, and she wiped the sweat away on her brow.

Steve came abreast of her and shoved his hands in his pockets. He followed her line of sight over the edge of the building. They were too far above the street to make out the features of the tiny people below, but whenever someone drew close to the door of the tower, he could see Natasha tense.

They stood in silence for a long time, the captain marking the passage of time by the elongating shadows cast by the buildings.

Finally, Natasha glanced at him.

"I've lost a lot of teammates," she said. "And left more than a few behind. It was always my choice."

"Bruce isn't lost," Steve said, although he wasn't so sure. "He's journeying."

"What if he doesn't come back?"

"I think he will," Steve looked out at the city, "But if he doesn't, that's his choice. We can't make it for him."

"I don't like it," Natasha admitted. "It doesn't sit right, leaving him behind." She paused, and Steve could see the gears turning in her head. He remained silent. "You traveled Yggdrasil. What was it like?"

"It's what what could probably be expected of journeying anywhere foreign. There's a lot of danger and a lot of uncertainty, but there's beauty, and a million things to be learned. Both about the place you're in, and about yourself."

"Sounds like something Bruce would like," the Black Widow said. "But it doesn't sit right, leaving him behind," she repeated.

"Did we leave _him_, or did he leave _us_?" Steve knew what Loki's take on the matter was, but he'd learned Loki's version of things and everybody else's could be incongruous.

"He left us," Natasha admitted grudgingly.

"Well, then we've got to wait until he's ready to return," Steve provided.

"I was going to make this a Widow's Walk," Natasha complained lightly motioning to the terrace. Some of the tenseness had left her shoulders and there was a slight upturn to her lips.

"This is my garden, or didn't you know? Anyway, Widow's Walks are noting more than romantic ideals," Steve chided. "Haven't you ever looked Wikipedia's page on the matter?"

"Have _you?"_ Natasha asked.

"Of course," Steve replied lightly, "how else would I know about the modern world?"

Natasha laughed.

"I saw you brought some tea out," she said, nodding towards the mason jar,. "Is it ready?"

"No, but I'll make you some tea of your own, if the lady desires?"

"The lady _does_. It's hot."

"Well then, let's brew some tea. It'll be fresh; I'll just throw some ice on it. This sun tea—this won't be ready until tonight. But it'll be the best tea you've ever had."

"I'll hold you to that," Natasha swore, following him inside.

"Count on it."

A/N:

A widow walk is a common architectural feature on 19th century North American coastal houses. Popular myth holds that they allowed wives of mariners to watch for their spoueses' return, often in vain, the sea having taken their husbands. In reality, they were standards features of Italiante architecture, which was popular during the Age of Sail.

I know it's been a bit of a gap since I posted the last arc, but in the meantime, I had a move, finals, got a black eye from a LtCol in my Marine unit (I was a goalie for "morale PT" and he kneed me straight in the face. BUT HE DIDN'T SCORE. BOOM), got covered in poisoned ivy, and finished off the year with a 3.9, and my husband suddenly got orders for four months in Miami. (Sad him, I'm sure) BUT, Val, my editor and I are wrapping up the last chapter for the arc and it should be more than ready when it's posted in the next few days.

Also: I know most people likely skip over the lyrics at the beginning, but if you do: take a second glance at them. I spend a lot of time agonizing over them, and they often provide clues to the insight of a character, or provide foreshadowing to either the story or the arc in general.


	2. Anyone Making Anything New

Chapter 2 Anyone Making Anything New Breaks Something Else

_There were moments of dreams_

_I was offered to save._

_I lived less like a workhorse,_

_more like a slave._

_I thought that one quick moment_

_that was noble or brave_

_would be worth the most of my life._

_So I pointed my fingers_

_and shouted a few quotes I knew,_

_as if something that's written_

_should be taken as true._

_But every path I had taken_

_and conclusion I drew_

_would put truth back under the knife_

_Oh you can judge the whole world on the sparkle that you think it lacks._

_Yes, you can stare into the abyss, but it's starin' right back._

When My Time Comes—Dawes

Steve didn't visit Tony's garage a lot, so despite living in the Tower for a few years, he needed JARVIS' help in finding the location. Following the AI's guidance down the stairs and through the halls, the captain reflected on the billionaire mechanic. Just as Tony had never sought out Steve in his bedroom, Steve had respected the seclusion of Tony's garage.

But he'd ignored Tony for long enough, and as he came upon the crowded garage, worse than Steve's room had been when Loki had found him, he realized he'd wait _too_ long.

The glass doors swung up at JARVIS' silent command, and Steve navigated the crowded floors populated by tools and garbage. The billionaire was sitting slumped at a desk, one hand propping up his head and the other wrapped around a half-empty bottle of Evan Williams Bourbon.

"We have a mission."

Steve threw the missive down on Tony's work desk. Empty whiskey and scotch bottles crowded out the tools, and Steve had the impression that Tony hadn't done any real work in his garage in quite some time.

The genius started, bloodshot eyes peering up at Steve quixotically, black hair oily and mussed.

He grinned blearily at Steve and motioned at the fallen bottles, ignoring the folder before him.

"Dead soldiers," he said. "You'd know something about that, am I right?"

Steve frowned and righted the bottles. When he went to throw them away, he found the trash overflowing. Instead, he put them in neat lines before leaning against the worktable with crossed arms.

"Tony, what's happened to you?"

The billionaire looked into his bottle, and Steve wasn't sure he was going to answer at all.

"I happened," he finally muttered, looking up. "I'm what happened to me."

"This isn't you," Steve said firmly. "We just haven't had anything to focus on, so you're letting everything you saw weigh you down."

Tony's face crumpled before firming up into a scowl.

"Oh, yeah? Tell me, Cap, do you remember the fields of the dead? Did all the men and women and their children you'd killed accidentally, in an attempt to make a buck, follow you around and cry for you to let them back into the world?"

Steve leaned against the messy desk, considering the philanthropist.

He knew Tony relied on a heavy shield of self-deprecating humor and acerbic wit to navigate through life, and in some ways, that made him more like Loki than he was probably willing to admit. He chose his next words carefully.

"Listen, Tony, we can sit here and compare war wounds, and try and figure out who has it worse, but—and let me know if I'm wrong—I don't exactly see either of us winning at that game."

Tony huffed. Taking a sip from his bourbon, he eyed Steve.

"Why are you here?" He asked, when he realized he wasn't going to be able to get his captain into a dick-measuring contest over who had it harder.

"I told you—we have a mission."

"Oh _really." _ Tony picked up the manila folder stamped with "For Official Use Only" and eyed it critically. He sneered up at Steve as he flipped it open. "Fury hasn't bothered us for a month. What's got his panties in a bunch now?"

"The West is burning. It's getting pretty bad—The National Guard has been called in to aid the firefighters, but the fires have already claimed over thirty thousand acres and a thousand homes. America needs the Avengers. I can't do anything about those people that your weapons killed, but we can save the people trapped by the fires now."

"So what are you saying? That I can somehow make up for the people my weapons killed by saving some middle class Americans in Colorado?" He flipped through the folder.

"No," Steve pressed his lips together. "I'm saying that those people are dead and you can't do anything about that. But there's people that need saving right now, and you_ can_ do something about that. You can stay here and drink yourself to death, or you can something worthy of your time and money," he waved to the splayed-open folder.

Tony rifled through the papers, peering groggily at the maps and the cool statements of damages and lives lost. Steve knew that Tony knew his technologies were well equipped to handle to the fires, but he remained quiet while the billionaire considered the mission.

"Where and when do you need me?" He finally asked.

"Now. Get your shit together, Tony. We're heading out."

Tony stumbled as he stood and he frowned at the ceiling. "JARVIS, how are we on that hangover remedy?"

"Nowhere, sir. I thought it was a...drunken musing."

"Goddamit, JARVIS. I don't even know why I keep you around." He turned his attentions to his captain. "Okay, fine. Let's get going."

"I _have_ made some upgrades to your suit in the last month, sir," JARVIS supplied as Iron Man rifled through the fallen liquor bottles for his armored suit.

"Well," Tony considered, "I guess you aren't a _complete_ waste of RAM."

And while Steve only had the barest appreciation of the statement, he grinned to himself as he exited the room.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Thor caught Steve by the hangar door. Steve stopped from where he was adjusting the straps on his shield. His smile faded when he noticed Thor's frown.

"Everything okay, boss?"

"We are headed into fire," Thor said.

"A forest fire, yeah."

"I do not know what roads you traveled in Niflheim, but I suspect those you took were not dissimilar to our own. I saw your charred bones, I think I know the fire you walked."

Steve didn't answer, remembering the sizzle of his flesh and the acrid smell as he burned. He'd not had enough muscle to propel him fast enough out of the broiling inferno, and had nowhere to go, even if he had. So he burned, and Bucky had held his hand and said, "We'll get through this. We always have."

But Steve couldn't vocalize this to Thor, wouldn't, even if he knew how.

Instead he said, "Loki didn't mention you had been in a fire."

"He did not know," Thor excused his brother, and Steve wondered if Loki had become the man he had because his family had grown accustomed to making excuses for him. "Clint almost died in those woods and if not for Tony Stark, I fear that he would not have survived at all."

"You think the team's going to react poorly to this fire," Steve realized.

"They are strong warriors, but the mind can be a fickle."

"Thanks for bringing it to my attention," Steve said, grabbing his shield.

Thor nodded. "Think nothing of it. You are my captain. Let us adventure."

Steve grinned as he geared up, but it felt hollow.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Natasha headed the jet across the country with deft hands, and Loki watched as the skies grew black long before the orange flames became evident, and any indication of what was beneath was lost in the oily, turning smoke.

Loki felt Steve shift beside him, and he chanced a look at his bonded.

Steve's blue eyes were observing the team, and he frowned when he glanced at Clint, whose hands were white-knuckled where they gripped the armrest, face ashen as he looked out the window.

Loki observed Romanov from where she was deftly piloting the plane. He saw her look back and catch Steve's eye and nod slightly, her eyes crinkling in an unformed show of confidence. He felt his bonded relax.

"Your TV does not do this justice," Thor observed solemnly, staring out the window.

"No," Steve agreed. "All those people and their lives—" He fell silent, and the team didn't pick up the thread, and the cabin filled with silence.

Natasha landed the jet on the evacuated runways of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Updated diagrams indicated that fires rages along the Front Range of Colorado and again in the high forests of the Sierra Nevadas, further to the south.

Steve could see multiple planes, mostly rotary wing, but a few fixed wing, in the distance dropping thousands of gallons of flame retardant over burning mountains.

As they stepped off the jet, the air thick with smoke and ash, Steve felt something shift deep inside him. His memories pulled, sparking images of black smoke and the peculiar smell of burning flesh. He shut them away, knowing he'd have to deal with them at some point, but now was not the time.

"What can we do?" Clint asked. "We aren't armed to fight this."

Tony looked down at the suitcase that held his armor—it was designed to start fires, not stop them.

"Everyone should have been evacuated," Natasha agreed, "It's not like we can swoop in and save people."

"Loki, I believe you're most capable to fight this," Steve said, glancing at Clint and Natasha and their ashen faces before looking back at the gods. "Thor, go with him. You can summon storms, right? Can you get us rain without the lightning?"

Thor had mentioned his concern for his teammates, but Steve wondered how the fire affected him. As he scanned the oily horizon, he realized he couldn't worry about it—they needed Thor and his singular ability to control storms.

"I can," Thor smiled hugely. He turned to Loki. "Brother, do you remember when we were but children, and we managed to anger Surt and he loosed his great fire?"

Loki's face broke into a smile.

"Of course. He sought to burn the world before Ragnarök."

Tony looked at Steve and mouthed, "Burn the world?" Steve shrugged and shook his head.

"Do you remember how we quelled the flames?"

"I do," Loki's smile turned cunning. "This is but the mild flames of a forest, naturally occurring. I expect we can make short work of it."

Thor laughed.

"Let us be off!"

Thor took to the air, and with a slight wavering of hot air, Loki was gone, leaving the team alone on the airfield.

Steve realized his fears had been unfounded—with his brother at his side, Thor had never been better.

0o0o0o0o0o

It wasn't long into their search that Thor and Loki found an abandoned neighborhood on the brink of being consumed.

Heavy embers fell onto roofs, and the sound of trees exploding and the crackling of fire filled the air.

Thor felt Loki materialize beside him and looked over, a grin splitting his face. It had been a long time since his brother had been at his side, and not working against him.

Thor would never know everything that had happened to his brother in Niflheim, and it didn't matter. His brother had changed for the better and was beside him now, and little else mattered.

His eyes blinked away the tears born from the broiling smoke. It was hot—hotter even than Niflheim had been, and in a strange way. Belatedly, Thor realized it had been a cold fire that burned in Hel's dark realms.

He had to yell to be heard over the din of the fire.

"I'll get on the roof of that building there!" He pointed, "and summon the storms! I trust you have the ice handled?"

"Of course," Loki returned mildly.

Thor shrugged and bounded away.

Loki curled his fingers and summoned ice, forming it from the clouds and Thor's gathering storm.

He manipulated the ice, sending it out across the ground towards the trees and houses that igniting almost immediately once the fire got to them.

Above him, he could hear the thunderclouds; vaguely aware of the effort Thor was putting in towards containing the lightning. Great bolts of spider lightning spread across the sky.

Loki touched the falling rain, turning it colder until they were not quite-hail—he wouldn't trade one destruction for another—and the skies opened and a torrent poured forth.

As the brothers worked, Loki became aware of a faint cry for help. He looked up to Thor, whose eyes were meeting his across the black haze. Loki nodded, leaving Thor to his storms, and bound off in the direction of the cries.

Loki raced through empty streets clogged with falling ash and smoke. The cries had died off.

"Hello?" He shouted, feeling almost ridiculous

Just before he gave up, the smoke and the ready to account the voice to his unconscious, he heard a soft cough; out of the perception of human ears. He threw open the door to a corner home and found an old woman slumped in a recliner. She looked up at Loki with rheumy eyes.

"What are you doing?" He snarled. This neighborhood had been evacuated. There was no reason for this woman to be here.

"This is my home." She coughed.

"Is it worth dying for?" Loki crossed the plush, aged carpet, a horrid mint green, and scooped the woman up with more gentleness than his tone betrayed.

She struggled.

"My husband," she pleaded.

Loki hesitated; nothing good would come from lingering in this inferno. But the woman's grip tightened on his arm and her watery blue eyes were pleading. "Where is he?"

The woman pointed to a faded picture on the fireplace mantle. A young couple stared out at him. Time had aged the corners and light had faded the colors, but the joy was still evident on their faces after all these years.

Loki knew without asking that the picture was all that was left of her husband, and he grabbed the tarnished silver frame and handed it to her. She clutched the picture to her chest.

He was stronger than before, and phasing wasn't quite the burden of energy it once had been. It used to be that teleportation was so draining that he was unable to use it in quick succession, but he used it now to phase them past the fire line and into the waiting arms of a paramedic team. They took her quickly, slapping an oxygen mask to her face.

The woman held her wedding picture to her face and smiled beneath the mask at Loki. She held his gaze for a moment longer before he turned to head back to his brother.

Thor's storm spread across the Front Range incrementally. Loki searched for the water he knew waited into clouds and called it forth, fighting to keep the water in its liquid state so it wouldn't evaporate before it hit the flames.

The brothers bounded up the mountains, chasing the fire. The only marking of time was the descent of darkness, exemplified by the black clouds.

Loki tracked Thor's movement across the sky, glowing a faint blue from constrained electricity.

They worked tirelessly, beating the fire back slowly. They worked through the night, and into the second. On what must have been the third day, Steve and Tony came for them. Loki almost lashed out as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned rapidly, the curse he'd had prepared died in his mouth when he caught Steve's red-rimmed eyes.

"Good work," the captain said. Ash marred his blond hair and his face was dark and smudged. When he smiled at Loki, it was a brilliant thing.

Loki's hand fell away.

"The fire is contained," Steve continued. "The firefighters can manage the rest," he explained.

Tony and Thor joined them. Thor's hair was wild from wind and static electricity. His shoulders were slumped from days of controlling the weather. He gave his brother a proud smile.

"Natasha can't get the plane in this close: it's still too smoky. Thor, can you still fly?"

"I can."

"Loki, do you have enough energy to phase yourself out of here?"

"I do," Loki said.

"Great. Ironman, take Thor back to the jet. Loki and I will meet you there."

Tony nodded and shot off, Thor on his heels.

Steve squeezed Loki's shoulder.

"You saved that woman," he said. "The old one," he clarified needlessly.

"She wouldn't have needed saving if she'd evacuated when she was meant to," Loki snapped.

"It's hard to leave behind your life," Steve said, and Loki knew his bonded knew something about that. Steve's bloodshot eyes met his own. "Let's get out of here."

Loki nodded, pulling on his reserves to transport them to the waiting jet. They stumbled on, and Loki was sure he'd never felt anything as plush as the waiting seats of Stark's jet.

The ride back was quiet. Thor fell into an exhausted sleep almost immediately. Loki felt sleep threaten him, and he fought it off as long as he could until Steve nudged his shoulder and said, "Sleep. You earned it."

Loki woke when the plane came in for a landing on Stark's helipad, and Steve scooped an arm under Loki's shoulder.

"Let's get you to bed."

"I can walk on my own," Loki resisted, attempting to stumble away, but Steve held on.

"You can fall on your face from exhaustion in front of the team, or you can let me help you in."

"Damn you," Loki griped, but he allowed Steve to guide him back to his room, the rest of team breaking for shower and sleep. Steve deposited Loki to his bed, and he fell bonelessly to his mattress, allowing sleep to claim him once more.

0o0o0o0o

Odin stayed on his throne as long as he could, ignoring the scratchiness in his throat and the soreness that remained despite the amount of liquid he consumed. He knew it was only a matter of time before he, too, succumbed to the sickness.

The healers were calling it a wasting illness, but they'd not discovered the cause. As Frigga's condition deteriorated, he didn't have the time to wait. He'd never questioned his healer's abilities before, and while he couldn't care less about his own health, the health of his people—and his wife—was only growing worse. So he sent his ravens out with the hope that they'd be able to find the nature of the illness so that the healers might develop a remedy before it was too late.

Balder remained at Frigga's side, but he, too, had grown ill. Although he would not admit it, his brow was bright with sweat and he coughed into his elbow when he thought his father was not paying attention.

When Heimdall came to call on them, his shoulders were slumped, his dark face betraying an unhealthy pallor, and Odin knew the time of the Aesir was limited, and Ragnarök was coming just yet.

"Sire, I fear I, too, have grown ill. It is time we bring your sons back home."

"If they are not yet ill, I would not wish this upon them," Odin said, wiping Frigga's brow, an eye on his son, unsteady in his chair.

Heimdall remained silent.

"They have show signs, then," Odin guessed, when his guardian remained silent. He looked up to see the god slumped around his staff, using it to support his weight. His fingers were colorless.

"No," the god started, when he realized he'd been silent too long.

"Then we shall not call them back."

"Majesty," Heimdall bowed heavily. He righted himself with visible effort, and stumbled back to his place of vigil.

"Father," Balder moaned. Odin looked up just in time to see his son slump to the ground.

0o0o0o0o0o

Loki woke after an uneasy sleep. He padded up to the kitchen, expecting to find it abandoned, but the rest of the team, save his brother, was already there.

Barton was chopping up vegetables for a salad, and Steve pulsed a food processor, making some sort of cold soup.

Romanov pushed a mug of tea towards Loki. Her own hands were wrapped around a mug of coffee, dark eyes were ringed in black, hair mussed and singed around her face.

Barton and Steve delivered the meal silently, their exhaustion still evident in the slow way they plated the table, and Loki suspected they'd slept as well as he.

Thor lumbered in. Though clean, his skin was an unhealthy pallor. His great frame slumped slightly around bowed shoulders. Loki watched him closely and made a note to ask his brother about his health in private.

Thor coughed roughly, and Loki's sense of alarm spiked.

"Smoke in your lugs?" Barton asked, settling a large bowl of salad in front of him.

"I believe so," Thor said, softening his next cough in his hand.

Steve put a bowl of melon soup in front of Loki before settling into his own seat. Loki eyed the soup suspiciously.

"It's honeydew," Steve explained. "Made with honey. It'll be good for our throats." He spooned his own serving into his mouth.

Loki tested it. Despite the peculiar color, it was gentle on his pallet. The cool soup slid down his throat.

"It is good," he admitted.

Steve gave him a tired smile.

The team was too tired to talk, and so they ate silently, the clinking sound of silverware meeting porcelain the only disruption to the silence.

Thor sniffled.

Loki looked at him sharply.

"Brother, are you ill?"

Thor waved him off. "We do not get sick, brother. You know this. It is nothing. Just the smoke."

Romanov's discerning eyes regarded Thor, her head tilted to the side before her eyes slid over to Loki. He stared back defiantly. No matter how long he had spent in her presence, Natasha was still the best at concealing her thoughts, and Loki wondered what she was thinking.

Steve was the first to rise, cleaning up the table. Natasha stood to help.

Tony had fallen asleep in his chair; his head lolled back at an unnatural angle.

After the table was cleared and the dishwasher turned on, Steve poured himself a glass of iced tea. He sat back down, his eyes looking into the distance, and Loki knew his bonded had remembered more of his time in Niflheim.

0o0o0o0o

The Avengers' efforts had apparently pleased their representatives in Congress. Pictures of Thor's storm were sent out across the airwaves. Hazy videos of the rest of the team supporting the fire fighters efforts showed on the evening news for the next week. The woman Loki saved was interviewed.

"He was my guardian angle," she told the anchorman.

Tony laughed and put the video on repeat throughout Stark Tower. When he passed Loki in the halls, he would give Loki a Look that the Frost Giant quickly found irritating.

SHIELD mostly left them alone. They returned to their pastimes.

Across their shared bond, Loki could feel Steve's nightmares whenever the man sought sleep.

Loki could not offer any respite: he had them, too.

0o0o0o0o

Odin felt sickness roil in his stomach. He was unable to keep down even the porridge the healers had prepared.

Sweat rolled off his chilled body. Regardless of the furs he piled on, he could not become warm.

He placed a dry hand over Frigga's. She had stopped responding many days past, and remained oblivious to his touch. Despite all his wisdom he missed his wife and her advice.

Balder lay in his own chambers but Odin no longer had the strength to go to him. He worried what might happen to Asgard, should he fail.

"Hugin, Mugin," Odin croaked. "Find my sons. Bring them to me."

A/N

There were never any huge fires while I lived in Colorado, although we did have a few significant brush fires that were luckily quickly controlled. I drove through one once on my way to Denver from Colorado Springs. I-70 had these great, roiling black clouds blown across it. I don't know what started the fire; it may have been a cigarette butt thrown carelessly out the window of a passing car.

The Waldo Canyon fire in the summer of 2012, when this was written, caused the evacuation of the families of several of my friends. My mother's childhood home burned to the ground. There is nothing more frightening to me (state side) than the possibility of my home going up in flames. Dovetail: although this was originally written in 2012 and it's 2014, there are already wild fires in the West. I guess I should be happy that wildfires are so timeless as to still be applicable, but I'm not. I'm about to be facing fires personally, as I've just begun volunteering at the local fire department/emergency squad.

As for Loki using the fire clouds to summon water and thereby ice…since one of the byproducts of combustion is water, I figured it should work! HEYO. IMAGINARY SCIENCE AT WORK. (But seriously, heat plus a subtstance equals CO2 + H2O, so it could work!)

Thanks so much to the people the time to review. It means a lot! They're like warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies for the soul. Also, because I can't PM you directly: Katie, thank you so, so much for commenting! I don't have loads of reviewers, but the ones I do have (and this goes for everyone) are both insightful and meaningful. I started this in the summer of 2012, so a lot of time and effort has gone into the story. I know I should only write for myself, but it really does mean the world to me when other people appreciate the work, too. And as for my regulars and everyone else who has stopped by: thanks so much.


	3. Black Eyes

Chapter 3 When You Last Left me my Blood Was in a Jar

_All of the roads are one now, each choice is the same_

_All the roads, they are one now, each choice is the same_

_I won't show my hands now, I know this ain't a game_

_All the roads, they are one now, each choice is…_

Black Eyes—Radical Face

Unable to sleep, Steve sought the refuge of the tower landing. He'd bought several plants from the Farmer's Market, but hadn't had the chance to put them in the ground yet. He'd have to get them transplanted this week, or risk losing them entirely.

He was surprised to find that Loki was already there, reclining in one of the cedar Adirondack chairs, a book resting in his lap. He looked up when Steve entered, the book drooping in his hands.

"What are you reading?"

"_East of Eden_," Loki held up the book cover so that Steve could see the starkly printed words against the sparse jacket.

Steve took a seat in the accompanying chair.

"Have you read _Grapes of Wrath_? It's Steinbeck's more famous work."

"Yes, but this one is better."

"Really?

"But I do not care for Cathy. Have you read the book?"

"Not yet. I read _Grapes of Wrath_ but _East of Eden _came out after—" Steve trailed off. "Anyway, when did you start reading human books?"

"Banner welcomed me into his library," Loki replied coolly, "and suggested a few stories for me to read. I found this one of my own accord."

"I didn't know Bruce kept anything besides scientific journals," Steve said, surprised.

"Banner seeks to better understand mankind so that he can better understand himself and the creature he created," Loki said with what Steve thought was a startlingly insightful statement, "and the secrets of humanity are not found in scientific literature."

"No," he agreed, "they aren't. But why do _you_ read our literature?"

"For the same reasons," the Aesir god replied blithely, returning to the book.

Settling into the Adirondack chair, the captain reflected on his companion.

The god had changed incrementally since their initial travels across Yggdrasil, but now, almost two years later, Steve realized those changes had compounded. The man Loki was now was a stranger to the man he had been.

Steve did not think this was a bad thing.

"Brother!" Thor boomed, stomping onto the promenade in an echo of his usual bluster, his face pale beneath his golden hair. Steve noticed not for the first time just how ill the Aesir looked, and while he was beginning to suspect it was more than just smoke inhalation, he was reluctant to bring the matter up. They'd already been through so much and he hoped—naïvely, he admitted—that if he failed to address the subject of Thor's health, he'd simply get better of his own accord.

"Well," Loki lamented, bookmarking his page and closing the book, "I cannot expect to get any more reading done tonight."

"Can't sleep either?" Natasha asked rhetorically as she and Clint entered the esplanade, not far behind Thor. They settled down on the wood beams of Steve's raised garden. They remained relatively reticent, and Loki returned to his book.

Steve was not surprised when Tony appeared not much later, a drink in hand. He held a pitcher in the other.

Pepper followed in tow, her stressed-lined face only brightening incrementally when she saw the team.

"JARVIS said you lot were up here. Nightcap, anyone?"

"Sure, fill me up," Nat said.

"Me too," Clint said.

"I am fine," Thor begged off.

"I thought as much," Stark said, setting his pitcher down on the weatherproof bar he'd set up when Steve hadn't been looking. He pulled out the necessary glasses, and poured his spiked lemonade into it. Handing the portions out, he took a seat in another one of the chairs he'd ordered.

"Nice night," Clint said, apropos of nothing, after he'd taken a sip of the proffered drink.

"A little humid," Tony acknowledged.

"Better than the cold," Steve said.

The billionaire looked down into his glass.

"I guess," he agreed.

"Are you reading a book?" Natasha interrupted, before the conversation could become too maudlin.

Loki looked down at the novel in his lap. "Steinbeck," he said, "_East of Eden_."

"Oh, I liked that one best. But _Tortilla Flats_ isn't bad, either."

"I haven't read that yet," the Jotunn admitted, looking thoughtful.

"You should."

"Woah—did we start a book club that everyone failed to tell me about? Aren't you more of a Machiavellikind of guy, Loki? When did you start reading books anyway?"

"It is not as if things are teeming with excitement," Loki returned mildly.

"Oh, yes. Forest fires that burn down entire states are positively run of the mill," Tony agreed dryly.

As the light banter continued, Steve allowed himself to zone out, finding comfort in the familiar teasing.

While his nighttime hours had become things of horror, he at least had the benefit (or curse) of only remembering Niflheim incrementally. He knew his teammates weren't so lucky, and the trials they'd endured were apparent by the pull in their shoulders and the lines on their faces. They'd grown immeasurably older from their time spent in Asgard's Hell, and Steve was only slowly beginning to appreciate that they were aging—that they were dying.

And for all his years, he would always remain a robust man in his twenties.

He glanced at Thor and Loki. Thor's pallor had not improved, but from everything Steve had gleaned, the Aesir did not grow sick, and so he was left to ponder why the golden god appeared so sallow.

As for Loki—Steve was sure he'd never seen his bonded look quite so alive. Without the burden of his destiny weighing on him, there was a veracity that he'd never had before. His comments weren't quite as cutting, his demeanor not as angry.

"Sir," JARVIS interrupted, bringing Steve out of his thoughts, "you have, uh, visitors calling on the brothers and Mr. Rogers," the AI continued, sounding apologetic and a little bewildered.

Tony looked at his watch.

"It's almost two in the morning!" He declared, looking at the Aesir and Steve. "Expecting anybody?"

"Who would I expect?" Steve asked. "Everybody I know is already here."

When Loki and Thor looked back at Tony with blank expressions Tony commanded, "Tell them to come back tomorrow. Who calls at two in the morning? I mean, besides you know, ladies. But not anymore," he added quickly, glancing at Pepper.

"Sir, I'm afraid they're quite insistent."

There was a flapping noise and Steve's heart sunk as two giant ravens settled on the backs of the Adirondack chairs he and Tony had put up the summer before.

"Hugin, Mugin," he said, and he knew nothing good would come from their visit.

The ravens cawed, one settling to land on each of the brother's shoulders. Steve didn't know what they were saying, but he saw Thor pale and Loki's face grow stormy, and he knew their brief reprieve had ended. When the ravens had finished with their message, Steve waited for the information to absorb before he asked, "What happened?"

Thor looked worse than before—if that were possible—and he didn't answer.

"Loki?" Steve prompted.

Loki was silent for a long time. The only break in silence was the soft cawing of one of the ravens—as for which one, Steve wasn't sure.

Birds as a whole looked identical to Steve. He thought, however, they might be offended if he admitted as much. Loki glared at it before he finally looked back at Steve, his face fractured.

"A wasting sickness is passing over our people. My mother was the first to fall, and my father cannot rouse her. Now he, too has become bed-ridden, and he has summoned us home. He fears that when he succumbs to unconsciousness, it will leave Asgard open to our enemies. In anticipation of this inevitability, he has named Thor King of Asgard."

"Holy shit, really?" Tony looked at Thor, the tentative smile on his face fading when Thor looked back at him.

"I cannot accept this burden," He coughed wetly into his fist. Steve viewed his friend critically—it was as though the news had stolen the last of his health away.

"Why not? I mean—isn't this what you've been preparing for your entire life?" Tony asked.

"Because," Thor looked at his hand, unsettled by what he saw, and Steve could see the blood, splattered in his palm. "Although I did not know the reason for my malaise, I have not felt well for quite some time. I fear that it means I, too, have fallen ill."

"I thought it was just smoke inhalation," Clint said a little too loudly.

"No, I was sick before we adventured. I fear the smoke may have simply hurried the onset," Thor admitted, sinking into one of the wooden chairs. He suddenly looked exceedingly frail, and Steve wondered if the Aesir were to die, would he be alone in his immortality?

He glanced at Loki, but his bonded looked well enough, his pale complexion par for the course, his green eyes bright and unclouded.

Selfishly, Steve hoped that Loki was somehow saved from the sickness. He could face the world, but not alone.

"Loki, you must return to take the throne," Thor looked up at his brother with glassy eyes. "You are next in line."

"No," Loki said quickly.

"Hey—why aren't _you_ sick?" Tony gave Loki a look that bordered on accusatory.

"Because," he said tightly, "I am neither Aesir nor Vanir."

"Oh," Tony realized, "That's right. You're that other thing. The blue one."

"A _Jotunn_," Loki snapped before turning back to his brother. He sank to his haunches and said quietly, "Brother you know as well as I that I must abdicate."

"But you are the next in line," Thor frowned. "And so you must shoulder this responsibility. If you refuse, the throne is forfeit."

"My last attempt at the throne is too recent. Those Vanir and Aesir that still stand will take sides, and there will be a civil war—those who would follow me and those who would not. If mother is dying—if you—" Loki trailed off, looking pained before starting again.

"We do not have the time to play war. We must find the cure in haste."

Thor considered his brother before he nodded.

"I am loathe to admit it, but what you say is true. And yet, we cannot leave Asgard undefended." Thor turned to Steve, and the captain felt the trepidation he'd been harboring grow.

"Captain Steve," Thor addressed the soldier, "my father's ravens say he imparted something of import to you before you returned to Midgard, something concerning this eventuality."

Steve stared back at Thor and then at Loki. A muscle jumped as he clenched his jaw.

"It wasn't supposed to be an eventuality—he said it was just honorary, like getting the key to a city."

"What did he say?" Thor pressed.

"Did the ravens tell you?" Steve asked.

Thor looked at the captain in consideration before he nodded slightly.

"They did. Loki has abdicated the throne. Neither my older brother nor I are fit to rule in our current position. The burden falls to you."

Silence fell among the Avengers.

"Wait, I think I just missed something," Tony said after a prolonged silence. "_Steve_ is going to be King of Asgard?"

"He said to think nothing of it! There were three sons to go through before it reached me," the captain argued, ignoring Tony.

"It reaches you now, Steve Rogers," Thor argued tiredly.

"Loki's alive," he insisted. "I wasn't meant to lead a pantheon. I'm only a man!"

"I cannot take it," Loki said. His attempt at power had been a sorry thing—Loki hadn't been prepared and he'd failed at everything he sought to prove. "It will cause war amongst my people. After my last dalliance as king, I fear that few would rally behind me again."

Loki was sure that he would be a better king than he had been before, but he also knew that with his mother's life in the balance, he didn't have the time to prove himself.

"You will find, I think, Captain Steve, that if things are as dire as the All-father's raven say they are, it is a position in name only. Asgar's throne _cannot_ be forfeited. The kingdom will fall into disarray, and her weakness known to our enemies."

"Well, we can defend Asgard without me being king," Steve said firmly. "I am a solider and a captain and the leader of this team, but I'm not royalty."

"I know this is a great burden, and I do not ask it lightly," Thor said with a cough. It was as if his earlier façade has taken all his energy. Sweat gathered on his brow, and he looked up furtively at the captain. "My father would not have bestowed this position on you if he if he did not think you could bear it.

"Captain Steve Rogers, you _must _accept this position or Asgard will fall into disarray and my people will be left open to attack by our enterprising enemies."

"Find somebody else," Steve insisted. "You're barking up the wrong tree."

"It's a position in name only," Loki tried. "There is none left standing to lead. Asgard needs a King."

"If it's just a position in name, then you shouldn't worry about taking the title," Steve argued. "I'm just a guy from Brooklyn, being king of a foreign realm is way out of my purview of knowledge."

Loki frowned.

"My mother lays dying while you dally with this decision. I have told you I cannot take it. There is no one else; you _must_ become King."

Steve didn't say anything for a long time. He could feel the team's eyes on him, urging him to make a decision. He cursed Odin, and Frigga, too. She was too clever by half, and Steve suspected she'd known something like this was going to happen and convinced Odin to deign him a worthy replacement for the crown.

The woman seemed to have a preternatural ability to know what was coming her way, and she orchestrated pieces long in advance to fall the way she deemed necessary.

After he had discovered that she'd arranged for he and Loki to be bound together, Steve knew she wasn't the simple wife and queen she pretended to be.

He had nothing but respect for the queen, but the Aesir had been wrong. It was not Loki they needed to be wary of—Frigga was just as clever as he, but she'd excelled at something Loki had never quite managed—she kept her cunning hidden.

"It is precisely because you do not want the power that it has been given to you," Thor said.

Steve was ready to refuse again, but the look that Loki gave him was filled with such yearning, such lost—and the captain realized just how deeply his bonded cared for his brother and Frigga.

Somehow, all of his hope was resting on Steve to accept this title and make things right.

It was a heavy burden, and one he would've never accepted for himself. But he found that Loki's searching eyes had a way of breaching his steadfastness in a way nothing else did.

"Okay," Steve said, and he felt he finally understood the ties that had bound Loki for so long.

If his suspicions were correct, Frigga had always known he was going to accept. She depended on his sense of honor and his loyalty to her sons. Although the Sagas had been erased, Steve found he was caught up in the binds of destiny all the same.

"Fine. I accept."

"Very well." Some of the tension eased from Thor's face, and he relaxed against the chair, dissolving into a brief coughing fit, his massive hands covering his face. When he was done, he leaned forward, exposing bloody palms.

"Do you swear to defend and uphold the glory that is Asgard, and to protect her from enemies?"

"Uh—yes," Steve said, and a part of him wondered if this was actually happening—if he was actually part of a coronation ceremony to become king of an alien kingdom. It was almost too unfathomable to comprehend.

"Do you swear bear truth faith and allegiance to the same, and that you take this obligation freely and without mental reservation?"

Steve hesitated.

"I do."

"And that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of this position of which you are about to enter?"

"I do."

"Then by the power appointed to me by my father, Odin the All-father, Lord of the Aesir, Gautr of men, the Wanderer and Lord of the Earth, father to the first humans, the Ancient one who Rides Forth and First Husband of Frigg, I name you King of Asgard, ruler of Valhalla, and of Gladsheim, and of Vingold, where the Asgardian goddesses gather, and of all the many palaces and fortresses of that great land. You will rule over these lands and her people until such a time when this wasting illness has been conquered and the Wise One may return to his throne.

"You are the King and the Warrior and may the Fates and the Old Ones keep you in good standing and health for all the years of your reign."

"_Years_?" Steve gaped.

"It's just part of the ritual," Loki placated.

Thor ignored them both, "All hail King of Asgard, Steve Rogers, Soldier and Captain of Midgard, known as the Displaced One and Mannvirðing in the Old Tongue. May he live long and well, and may his reign see only peace and prosperity."

When he was done, the cough he'd been repressing bubbled up, and he bent over as the deep, wracking coughs shook his body. When he pulled his hand away, blood dribbled down his chin, and his face was flushed.

"We don't have much time," Loki said. "We must hasten to Asgard."

"You're a king? You don't even have a crown," Tony said.

"Jesus Christ, Tony," Pepper nudged her lover.

"What—I'm just _saying_."

"I do not want to bring my brother back to Asgard. I do not know the nature of the illness my people suffer, and I do not think it is one of proximity, but I do not want to risk it."

"I'll watch him," Pepper offered. Loki looked at her with a critical eye. He'd never given her much consideration—thought her little more than Stark's companion. With a jolt, he realized it was hard to consider humans who would be dead in under a century as people worth thinking about.

Looking down at his brother, pale and listless, he wondered if humans were soon all the companions he would have.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

They gathered their gear, and Steve informed Agent Fury where they were going.

"They need to start paying for you services, much as they loan you out," he groused.

"Yeah," Steve agreed, only partly mindful of Fury's complaints.

"What if we need you?"

"You'll be fine without us. First time you sent us on a mission in months was to play fire fighters, and last I checked, that's not something any of us excel at," Steve returned mildly.

"When did you get lippy?" Agent Fury asked archly.

The captain ignored him, throwing another change of clothes into his sea bag. He wasn't sure how long they'd be in Asgard this time, and he had a sinking feeling that this wouldn't be a short jaunt.

Steve would see Nick Fury dead, and the rest of the Avengers besides, before he aged another day, and he knew he had to right Asgard to its previous stature because Frigga and Odin and the rest of them would soon be the only companions he'd have left.

"Captain," Agent Fury cut through his thoughts, and he looked up. For the first time in recent memory, his one exposed eye was inquisitive. Gone was the usual intensity and furrowing of the brows. "What's going on?"

Steve considered what he should tell him, unsure how far he could trust the man. Weighing out his possibilities, he finally relented and told him everything he knew.

"The Avengers aren't sick?" He asked, when Steve had finished.

"No. Loki isn't, either."

"I'm going to ask you straight—what concern of it is to you? We've had the Avengers benched since you returned, and we've been lucky. There have been no major events we've needed for you. But when did your loyalty start to lie with the Aesir? When did you become compromised?"

"I am _not_ compromised," Steve straightened and eyed Agent Fury. "The Aesir guarded us from any major alien incursions for over two millennia. They made sure I came back. And as their King, I owe it to them to make things right."

There was a long silence, and Steve could see he'd startled the man. Agent Fury finally blurted, "... King?"

"It's a long story," Steve sighed, settling onto the bed and staring at the screen.

"I guess so," Fury returned tightly before his face eased slightly. "I expect a report when you return. We'll hold down the fort around here. Good luck."

"Thanks. I think we're going to need it," he replied, keying off the video.

Making sure his gear was in order, he threw the sea bag over his back and headed to the terrace, where the rest of the team was waiting.

"Are we ready?" He asked, looking at his teammates. "You don't have to come, this does not involve Earth," he offered.

"Don't insult us," Natasha said, but there was no bite to it.

"It involves Thor, so it involves us," Clint said. "Besides, who can say they've followed a King?"

Steve ignored him. "Loki, did the ravens say if Heimdall could get you home?"

Before Steve could finish his sentence, the brilliant, glittering echoes of the Bitfrost landed abruptly in front of them.

He stepped on it.

CHAPTER END

A/N

Mannvirðing is the Old Norse word for "Crown" which is one of the meanings for "Steve" I did some back-translating using an Old Norse dictionary. So if you know Old Norse and I'm incorrect, let me know!

Also, Thor's speech is equal parts British Coronation and the swearing in for officers in America. We use the same speech we've used for 250+ years, so the phrasing is a little archaic, and I thought it worked.


	4. The Crown Weighs Heavy

Chapter 4 The Crown Weighs Heavy

_The victor earns the title "The Great"_

_All the mysteries get unlearned_

_All the history just becomes a string of dates_

_The hordes overrun in a clean sweep_

_Destroying everything that was built_

_Where's the glory in making mothers weep?_

Hey I Don't Know-Kongos

In the 1300s, long after Loki's name had become a ghost of a memory to the people that had once worshipped him, he'd taken to traveling Midgard. In those days, the All-father was still engaging in war on a nearly daily basis, and Loki was hardly missed in the midst of the war campaigns.

Odin had made it known he did not need a son inclined towards woman's work on his front lines, and so Loki had made himself scarce.

Tricking humans was disappointingly easy, and Loki had almost grown tired of it. While moonlighting as a _djinn _and throwing the caravans of the Silk Road into upset, he'd learned of a devastating disease that was already wreaking havoc in the Eastern lands. Its mortality rate was dramatically high, and the course of the illness was both fast and terrible.

Loki became a traveler on the Silk Road. Gathering the petty things used by the diseased, he ensured the progression of the infection across the Holy Roman Empire and further West, until all of Europe was caught in the grips of the thing they called the Black Plague.

He knew that the infection would've run its course regardless of his intervention, but he still took immeasurable pleasure in depositing strains of the devastating disease in pockets previously untouched.

By 1350, with over 200 million people dead and Loki the major destructive agent of it all, he felt as though he'd finally meted justice for the forgetfulness of these temperamental humans.

"Where is your Christ?" He'd asked the man of sallow complexion that sat across from him in a lice-ridden tavern whose bread smelt and taste of mold, and which cost too much by half. Loki didn't have the prescience of his mother, but he knew enough about the illness to know that the man didn't have long.

"He is preparing us for the Second Coming," the man had replied, the sweat on his skin having nothing to do with the hot air of summer.

"Is he now?" Loki had leaned forward on the table, taking a swig of the disgusting concoction these people called ale.

"I will rise up and march in His army, when He calls for me."

"Will you?" The god had reached over and pulled the broth that was meant to be some semblance of potato soup before him. It lacked salt, but it was admittedly filling. He watched as the man grew progressively sicker before him—and that was the amazing thing about this pestilence: its action was present to the naked eye.

"Bar keep," he called. The man, a heavy-set thing in his middle age lumbered over. His apron was greasy, his jowls heavy, and when he moved to clear Loki's empty bowl, he knew it wouldn't be long before the malady passed to him. "I am done here," he said, standing.

Within days, Loki had heard talk of the small town—some name beneath his notice—had been nearly decimated by the Great Plague, and warmth had flooded him as he knew he was solely the cause of that village's demise.

A thousand years ago the people of that town had worshipped and sacrificed in his name, but now they considered him little more than a relic, if they thought of him at all.

And he had made certain there were none left to forget him ever again.

Loki had been proud of the destruction he'd wrought for a long time, but as they approached the unguarded gates of Asgard, reminiscent of Europe's ghost towns of the 14th century, any pride he'd derived was gone and in its place was the knowledge that he'd seen disease like this before.

That time, he'd been the causative agent, and now he wondered if this was how his punishment was being meted out, all these centuries later.

He frowned. He'd been spending too much time around the Avengers. There was no such thing as Tony's karma, or Steve's divine retribution.

They crossed the Bitfrost in silence. The crystal below them resounded with each step; a high-pitched chiming that reverberated until the peals had almost reached an uncomfortable dissonance.

He wondered why he'd never noticed it before—suspected it was because, even when he'd crossed the bridge alone, there'd been the steady buzz of life from Asgard that had dampened the crystal bridge.

As they closed on Heimdall's vacated place of vigil, something uncomfortable shifted in Loki's chest. Although his relationship with the guardian was shaky at best, he'd come to rely on him to always be there. He was a mainstay, and for all his grating enigmatic comments and all-seeing eyes, Loki knew that whatever happened while he traveled Yggdrasil, Heimdall would be there to welcome him home.

For years, it had annoyed Loki.

But now, he felt lost without the Guardian to bring him home, and without him, it was hardly like home at all.

"Creepy," Tony said, his voice at odds with the clanging of their footsteps.

"Was it always this loud?" Clint wondered, and Loki thought the team was talking if only in attempt to drown out the dissonance.

"No," Loki said. Steve gave him a measured look, but remained silent.

The halls of Asgard, usually filled with song and conversation, were markedly quiet.

Loki stopped abruptly when they came to a collapsed demigod—Bragi. The god of eloquence and poetry, Loki had sought him out in his youth to learn how to turn phrases and excel at half-truths. Slumped against a marble pillar, Loki could detect no noticeable rise and fall of the chest. Frowning, he knelt to check the pulse. It was thready and barely palatable, but Loki let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

Looking around, he realized Bragi was far from alone. Aesir had collapsed where they stood, their bodies populating the shining marble floors.

"Are they dead?" Romanov asked, following Loki's gaze.

"No. I suspect these are the ones that held out longest against the sickness," Loki stood. "There was none left to see them cared for. They remain where they fell."

"We can't leave them here," Steve said.

"We don't have a choice. Who would care for them? Us? We don't even know what's causing this," Natasha pointed out.

Steve stood over a collapsed goddess, his face torn in conflict. Eventually he turned away, his mouth drawn in a thin line, his thoughts hidden.

"Loki, take us to your parents."

Without the conversation of the living, the halls were echo chambers that marked their passage in sharp staccato. A cool wind ruffled the tapestries, as if disturbed by ghosts, and Loki felt a chill go down his back. Asgard was not meant to be cold, its halls not meant to be empty.

Hugin and Mugin flew before them, landing on pillars and empty chairs until the team caught up. They made a silent procession through the halls, and Loki was struck by the knowledge that if they failed, if they could not find what was killing the Aesir, then their resplendent tapestries would stand as memorials to their deeds, like friezes, or cave paintings.

Or gravestones.

_We were here: these are the things we did_.

The door to Odin's chamber hung open—there was none left to close it. Loki could see his parents lying in repose on their bed.

From a distance, they could be sleeping. He felt his step quicken as he crossed the room, quickly searching for his mother's pulse. He felt a weight slide from his shoulders as he felt life—faint though it was—evident on her wrist.

He looked up to see Steve checking Odin's pulse. He nodded when Loki's eyes met his.

"He's alive."

"We are not too late," Loki felt the knot in his chest ease. He'd thought they had died, and he realized for the first time how ill-prepared he was to deal with the death of his parents.

"Hey," Steve said quietly, his voice too loud in the hushed room. "Are you okay?"

Loki considered snapping at him, considered denying any feelings at all. He felt his lip curl in anticipation, but he quelled his instinctual reaction and looked up at Steve.

"I am unsure," he admitted.

Understanding dawned in his companion's eyes, and he nodded before turning. "Nat, Clint, I need you to sweep the grounds and take note of any gods that have collapsed from this sickness. Are there bedrolls, Loki? Cots?"

"For the field missions and long campaigns," Loki said. "In the armory."

"Tony, can you find the armory? Good," he said, when Tony nodded, "Go take stock of how many bedrolls we have. We're going to move everyone into the feasting hall. I don't know this disease is going to progress—" And Steve wished for Bruce, knew that his expertise in medicine would have been immeasurably helpful.

He wondered about their missing teammate: hoped he would come back to them soon.

"I don't know about the disease, but if their condition changes, it'll be easier if they're all in the same place."

"Got it, boss," Tony saluted, and Steve rolled his eyes.

The team head off on their respective missions. Hawkeye paused at the door.

"This disease," he began, "can we get it?"

"No," Loki said.

"Well, how do you know? I mean—we don't even know what's causing it."

The demigod looked down at his parents.

"If this were a disease transmissible to humans, I expect large swaths of Midgard would already be dead. Our immune system is beyond your own, and if it were a simple matter of an errant virus, it would've already spread to you."

Barton looked uncertain, but Natasha grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the chamber.

When Steve and Loki were alone, Steve looked over at the demigod. His face was cool, but his blue eyes belayed his understanding.

Loki knew that the captain's mother had died when he was still an adolescent, knew, further, that Steve assumed the same was happening to Frigga, and that Loki was helpless to watch her passing.

"She'll be _fine,"_ Loki spat, before Steve could say anything.

Blue eyes softened, and Steve nodded.

"Of course," he said.

"Don't placate me," Loki sneered. "Not after everything. My mother is not your own—she won't give up."

Emotions warred on Steve's face before it hardened. He pulled away.

"I'm going to see if anyone is conscious and can tell us about what happened," he said tightly before turning and storming away.

Loki sunk to his knees, his mother's limp hand clasped in his own.

0o0o0o0o0o

"I will travel to Jotunheim to see what their king, Laufey, knows," Loki declared once the Avengers had returned from their missions. They had found none coherent enough to form sentences, and most had been totally unconscious.

A few had life signs so insignificant as to be nearly non-existent.

"What makes you think he's going to tell you anything?" Tony asked. "I really should have read more up on Norse mythology," he added as an aside to Clint.

"Although Odin is the one who raised me, it is Laufey who is my father," Loki explained shortly.

"Oooooh," Tony nodded. "So is he a blue giant, then? Is he always blue, or sometimes blue, like you?" He glanced around at the tapestries in the hopes that his answer would lay in their dynamic weavings.

"_Frost giant_," Loki snapped, griping his staff tightly. "Not 'blue giant'."

Tony raised his hands. "Woah, touchy. It's an honest question though. _Sometimes _blue?"

"He is... always blue," Loki finally admitted.

"Do you want us to go with you?" Steve interceded before Tony could harass Loki further. Loki glanced at his captain. His eyes were still hard, his face stony, and Loki knew he had been remiss in speaking low of the captain's mother.

"No. He does not take kindly to those he perceives as lesser beings, and I fear it would cause more trouble than its worth."

Steve nodded, but his eyes skirted over the dog as he looked at the team. "Okay, then. We'll continue triaging," and he left the throne room, the Avengers following behind.

"Lover's quarrel?" Loki heard Stark inquire.

"Shut up, Tony," Steve's hushed voice was uncomfortably loud in the silent halls.

Heading for the reaches of Asgard where Loki had found a back route to Jotunheim that had been indiscernible to Heimdall and unknown to most Aesir, the god pondered over the complex balances of friendships. Steve put up with a lot from him. He acknowledged this freely. Sometimes, it seemed as though the man had immeasurable patience.

He felt oddly guilty for having crossed one of the unspoken barriers of things that Steve held sacred.

Loki pushed aside the over grown brush that marked the arrival to the forgotten door to Jotunheim.

Although there was no mention of it in the Sagas, Loki had gathered that the nine worlds had once been at peace, and crossing between them had been as simple as walking down the street and knocking on a neighbor's door. He'd found most of the old gateways, although he'd never found the door to Niflheim.

But then, he'd never looked very hard.

When he'd first sought out the gate to Jotunheim, he'd assumed it would be icy and foreboding. Contrary to that belief, it was a simple gap in the hedgerow of a fallow field, overgrown with wild flowers and tall grasses. Song birds were perched on the ancient wood fence posts, but they flew away as he approached.

He wondered if the Saga's never mentioned the peace between worlds because they'd been directly responsible for the declining relationships between the kings of the realms.

Stepping through the hedgerow, the mild, if not chilly, climate of Asgard was replaced by the biting cold of Jotunehim. The fields of gold were replaced by foreboding cliffs of ice and he felt his skin harden in response.

He'd only traveled to Laufey's fortress this way once before, and while the surroundings were unfamiliar—the land of ice was as shifting and inconsistent as the ocean—Loki knew where to go all the same. Although Laufey had not raised him, he felt a pull in his chest that drew him to his blood father.

While walking across the ice fields, he couldn't help but be reminded of Steve.

Loki had never been the sort to leave open ends, and it sat ill with him that he and Steve had parted on such unpleasant terms.

The captain hadn't regarded him so coldly since they'd first traversed the distant fields of Niflheim, and Loki had worn it as a badge of pride then.

Laufey's guardians regarded him coolly, but allowed him to pass. He moved through the halls of Jotunheim largely undisturbed. He was not unique here, and the courtesans and servants paid him little mind. But when he presented himself to the king of the realm, Laufey cleared the throne room.

When they were alone he said, "I see the reports of your death have been widely exaggerated."

"What had you heard?" Loki wasn't surprised that news of his death had gotten out, and he wondered how much Laufey knew about the events that had transpired on Asgard.

"That you and your pet human were killed. Erroneous information, I see."

"It was not. I _was_ dead, but I have returned."

Loki had never seen Laufey unsettled before, but his façade shattered for a moment as he processed the information.

"You were in Niflheim?"

"Tied to the rocks in the bowels beneath that dark realm, as I was always meant to be."

Laufey avoided the obvious question—_how are you alive?_—and leaned forward.

"My archivist brought me the Sagas. The future has been erased. There is no mention of Ragnarök. Does your return have anything to do with this?"

"No," Loki said, and that was true—they'd been erased before he'd died. "I do not have that power. That was the action of another—the human, Steve Rogers."

"Impossible," Laufey spat. "Ever since the day those accursed books were published, I have sought to turn from the path laid forth. Everything I've ever done has only ensured I was doing what I was fated to do. The Fates bound us with something more terrible than iron chains."

Loki was surprised to hear Laufey admit this. He wondered how many others had railed against their destinies, only to find they'd ensured their passing. He'd always assumed he was alone; the only one that couldn't accept his fate. When he'd finally accepted the terrible things he was meant to do, it was with defeated resignation.

But he just one of a thousand fellow gods acting out a drama written thousands of years before, trapped playing a role they never wanted to play.

"It _was_ impossible, and yet, this insignificant human managed it."

"Humans are mayflies—they don't live long enough to affect anything."

"This one is immortal."

"I thought you were more clever than this, Loki. I'm disappointed—you expect me to accept this swill as truth."

"I was the one who gave him the ambrosia."

Laufey stared down at Loki. Uncertainty rippled across his face. He sank back into the throne, a deep frown on his face.

"If what you say is true, it is unprecedented. I have also heard that there is a wasting sickness passing across Asgard. I disregarded this as simple rumors—the gods do not get sick. And yet, my emissaries have reported that the Bifrost was not opened to them when they went to attend to their duties there. This is an act of war, but I know the All-father is no longer the war-monger he once was, and we have no cause for war."

"Have your own people been falling ill?"

Laufey drummed his fingers against the armrest, clearly debating what to tell Loki.

"It is said that the children born from dalliances between my people and the Aesir have been... unwell."

"What about any full blooded Jotunn?" Loki pressed.

"No, my own people are hale. Is it true, then? Has Odin All-father grown ill?"

Loki shifted his weight and nodded.

"Frigga, too." He thought it unwise to mention that there were no Aesir left standing.

"I am sorry to hear that. While it is true my relationship with the All-father has not always been peaceful, I would not wish him ill, and your mother has always carried herself well and treated me only with respect. I assume Heimdall is similarly incapacitated, accounting for the Bifrost remaining closed."

"Yes, he is" Loki inclined his head. "I thank you for your words. I will take my leave of you." He turned to leave.

"Loki," Laufey called, and Loki paused. "Who is ruling Asgard while Odin is incapacitated? You?"

The god looked over his shoulder and smiled. "That insignificant human who orchestrated the erasure of the Fate's sagas, Steve Rogers."

"A human presides over Asgard?"

"By Odin's own appointment."

Laufey fell into a troubled silence, and Loki left the way he'd come.

0o0o0o0o0o

A North wind blew over the plains of Asgard, ruffling Loki's hair. He appreciated the open grassland—at least here, he could almost pretend that all was well. The tall grass was turning golden, and the foliage of the occasional Rowan or Oak that dotted the fields were beginning to erupt in the colors of autumn.

It would be beautiful, if it weren't so frightening.

The first fallen leaves had begun to collect in the corners of the great promenade and open halls, and they scratched across the marble floors as if alive when the wind caught them. The tapestries fluttered in the breeze, and dust had already begun to collect on the shining threads with no one left to clean them.

He hadn't been gone long, but the Avengers had managed to move almost all of Asgard's sick into the great hall. It had been bad enough when the floors had been lousy with collapsed gods, but it was almost worse now that the halls were almost totally devoid of any life at all.

He heard a grunt, and when he came around a pillar, he found Steve throwing Odr, over his shoulder. The captain looked up.

"You're back. What'd you find out?" He knelt down beside Odr's wife, Freyja, to try and negotiate her over his other shoulder.

"Laufey is concerned," Loki said, shouldering Steve out of the way so he could heft Freyja up. "Let me carry her." It was rare to see them together—Odr was often gone to parts unknown, leaving Freyja to search for him and cry her tears of red gold for him. Loki wondered if he'd come back for her when he'd learned of the illness.

Steve nodded, some of the tightness in his face easing.

"Thanks," he said, starting down the hall. Loki followed behind. "So, they're not responsible for this? Are the Jotunn getting sick?"

"The half-breeds."

"Those with Aesir blood?"

"Yes."

They walked in silence, and Loki was struck at how light Freyja was. She had always been lithe and was renowned for her beauty, but he could feel her bones beneath her skin, and realized they'd need a way to keep the sick fed, or they'd all die from starvation before they found a cure.

"You're scared," Steve said.

Loki didn't answer, and knew his reticence was telling.

They finished their walk in silence. When they reached the great hall, Loki's stomach soured when he saw the great number of Aesir lined up in neat rows. Barton was arranging a body he'd just deposited, and Romanov and Stark were walking along the rows. Stark would finish walking a line, say a number, and the Black Widow annotated it onto a piece of parchment.

"Welcome back," she said, walking over. Barton and Stark closed in as well. "Find out anything?"

"Laufey is as confused as we are, but his people appear largely healthy. As of yet, this disease is unique to the Aesir."

"Hey, I mean, couldn't it just be a virus? Would antibiotics work?" Stark offered.

"Possibly—but my people have never been susceptible to those things. I do not think this is something as simple as a microscopic organism."

"So then—who would do this to the Aesir, and how?"

"It would be powerful magic, and there are few that can wield magic of that caliber."

"That should narrow it down a bit," Romanov said. "What about Hel? I don't know if she's powerful enough, but she has cause to be angry. She said she was fine with us leaving, but—"

Loki looked thoughtful.

"I had not considered her, but even if she isn't the causative agent, she may know something."

"Wait—did we just all agree to go back to Niflheim? Grand," Stark said drily, and Loki could see the fear pooled in his brown eyes.

"No," Steve decided. "We can't leave Asgard unmanned. I'll go with Loki, but I need the rest of you here. If the Bifrost is down, I don't think we'll get any visitors, but we need to post security anyway. We need to take accountability of the people we have here, note their conditions and any changes, and sweep the grounds for anyone we might have missed."

"What about feeding them?" Clint looked down at the bodies. "They're not looking too good."

"There may be jugs of ambrosia in the pantry. It is not a lot, but it is the elixir for immortality, and should keep them hardy."

"I was going to suggest IVs, but sure, magical immortal alcohol works, too," the billionaire quipped.

"I'll go get my shield, and we can go," Steve said, leaving them in the great hall.

"I wouldn't wish Niflheim again on anybody," Clint said, and Tony nodded.

"Whenever I forget that we're in the presence of a boy scout, he does something like this to remind me," Tony joked, but it fell flat. He winced. "That came out wrong."

"You _do_ realize that he volunteered so that you don't have to go?" Loki asked.

Stark looked down at the gods and didn't answer. Color flooded Barton's cheeks, but Romanov looked at Loki and said, "Yes, we know that. It's why he's our leader, and why we would—and did—follow him into the mouth of hell. We're not idiots, Loki."

CHAPTER END


	5. In the Realm of a Dying Queen

Chapter 5 In the Realm of a Dying Queen

_She asked me, "Son, when I grow old,_

_Will you buy me a house of gold?_

_And when your father turns to stone,_

_Will you take care of me?"_

"_I will make you queen of everything you see,_

_I'll put you on the map,_

_I'll cure you of disease."_

House of Gold—Twenty One Pilots

"There are back door entrances to all the worlds," Loki explained as they crossed the massive field that surrounded the Hall of Asgard. If he looked behind them, Steve could see their path across the golden grasses. "They were built in the days before the Bifrost, when the world was new, and peace existed across the kingdoms. Odin had the Bifrost built as a means both to expedite travel, and to ensure he could have over watch of any who used the road."

"What ended the peace?" Steve pulled on the straps of his shield, tightening it over his shoulders. It was a comfortable weight, and he felt naked without it.

"The Fates. When they published the Sagas, and everyone learned about the part they were to play in Ragnarök, and the devious things they would do to one another and the things they were saying about one another behind their backs, the various peoples responded poorly."

"Ah." Not for the first time, he was exceedingly grateful that the Fates had considered humanity too insignificant to annotate their destinies into a similar volume.

He was beginning to struggle with his own faith. Nothing mentioned in the Bible accounted for Asgard and its substantial pantheon, and he had been too immersed in this culture, had seen too much, to disregard it. He shut down the train of thought. He wasn't ready to question his beliefs quite yet, and if his travels on Yggdrasil had taught him anything, it was that there were a lot of uncertainties.

Just because he hadn't figured out how the religions existed in relation to one another didn't mean his God was fiction.

Besides, he had been at the golden shores of Jordan, and he had seen the Howling Commandos and his parents, and that meant something.

"Have you been through this gate to Niflheim?" Steve asked.

"No," Loki admitted. "But I know where it is."

"How?"

Loki glanced at Steve slyly.

"I am the Sky Traveler. I had to earn that title. As I was not a warrior and was not involved in any of the All-father's many campaigns, I spent my time as I desired. I thought it would behoove me to learn of the forgotten doors that connected the realms. I have used several of them, but never Niflheim's"

After having walked those lands twice now, Steve didn't have to ask why. He'd have never sought the kingdom of his own volition, either.

Although his stomach was doing something funny, and his muscles were tensed in anticipation, he was grateful for the opportunity to get out of the Hall.

So far the walk was peaceful and beautiful, not much different than Vermont in early fall, and it beat the gloom that pervaded the Hall of Asgard. Although none of the gods had died yet, death loomed in the air and in the empty hallways.

"It's beautiful," Steve commented. The golden field was giving way to a deciduous forest. The saplings on the edge had already lost most of their leaves, but the forest canopy was bright with color. Loki looked up.

"It is, but Asgard is only meant to change seasons once. I do not care for the implication that it is happening now."

"You mean Ragnarök," Steve said, and Loki nodded. Steve felt a chill go down his spine.

"But, you said that had all been erased. That it wasn't happening." Birds were chirping happily in the trees, and Steve saw a pair of chipmunks chasing one another in the branches of an old beech tree.

"The Sagas have been erased, but that does not mean that forces are not at work to ensure Ragnarök occurs anyway."

Suddenly, the forest didn't seem quite so friendly. The bird song sounded frantic, and Steve could see the chipmunks were fighting over an acorn. The animals were preparing for the coming winter, he realized.

"You don't think Hel brought this curse upon the Aesir," Steve realized. He saw Loki's shoulders tense, and the look he gave the captain was calculating.

"You are too clever by half. You are right; I do not think she is responsible. If my suspicions are right, I expect she will be in much the same shape as the Aesir," Loki explained, holding a low branch so Steve could pass without it slapping him.

"Why are we going there at all, then?"

"Because her dead may know something about what is causing this illness."

"And because you don't have any other leads, and you're scared about Frigga," Steve said. Loki looked like he was about to be angry, before nodding, his face smoothing into practiced neutrality.

"Earlier, in my mother's chambers—" Loki began, but Steve cut him off.

"Forget about it. I would've said the same thing."

Loki looked relieved, and some of the tension in his face eased. Steve couldn't pretend to know half of the things that motivated Loki to do what he did, but he could understand the need to do anything in the world to save an ailing mother.

Steve could hear a waterfall in the distance, and as they walked, the sound grew louder. They came upon a wide, bubbling brook and followed it upstream until it opened up into a large pool. Deep blue water churned around the waterfall, one of the tallest Steve had ever seen. Which wasn't saying a lot—he hadn't seen a lot of waterfalls despite all his travels—but he always found them beautiful and a little mysterious.

Here, the mystery was compounded by the ghosts that gathered in the vale and around the waterfall. From the way Loki straightened, Steve knew this wasn't normal.

"Why are there dead here?"

His voice startled the ghosts, and they meandered in their direction, ghosting over the water. They left no reflection, and to Steve's relief, they appeared whole. Their flesh covered their bones, and none were losing body parts as they moved. They seemed to have more purpose than the masses that wandered Niflheim, but they all looked a little lost and more than a little upset.

"I feared as much," Loki muttered. He began moving with purpose, edging along the rocky shore. Steve followed, keeping an eye on the ghosts. They were mute, although their mouths moved as if they were speaking. A few drew close in curiosity, and one, a young woman in a peasant dress, reached out to touch Steve. Her hand slipped through his arm.

The touch was exceedingly cold, and goose bumps prickled his skin. He hurried ahead, navigating the short climb of rocks that lead to a ledge. Here, Steve could see a path behind the waterfall, and he followed Loki into the cave, crowded by wandering ghosts. Just as the blue light of the entrance was fading, and the captain was thinking of asking Loki what they should do for light, his companion disappeared in front of him.

"Loki?" Steve called. When there was no answer, he edged forward, keeping an eye on the ground; sure Loki had disappeared over some unseen ledge.

Steve was still looking down when he took his next step. His stomach lurched in a familiar way, and he stumbled as the wet stone was replaced with red dirt. He looked up, and Loki was looking back at him expectedly.

He didn't have to ask where they were. His memories, which had been trickling through incrementally in nightmares and words recalled, came rushing back. He fell to his knees and retched.

Closing his eyes against the world, his stomach continued heaving long after he'd emptied it. He remembered everything, and he understood the fear that had been in his teammate's eyes when Loki had mentioned traveling back to Niflheim.

When he was finally done, he stayed hunched over the ground, afraid to open his eyes, afraid that if he looked down at his arms, his legs, they would be charred bone once more.

When he'd been caught in the fire, his skin had blackened and bubbled before falling off in great sloughs. His muscles took longer, broiling under the intense heat. But he couldn't escape, didn't know where to go, and his old team was helpless: they were as lost as he. They'd whispered platitudes and hurried him along.

"There's got to be an end to this," Jacques had promised. "The whole world can't be on fire." But Steve hadn't been so sure.

When they'd finally broken free, he was little more than sinew and bone. Enterprising ravens and vultures followed him, braving the team's attempt to wave them away to snatch the last of the muscle that remained attached. His eyes had been burned away, but he could still see.

Beyond the pain, which was immaterial at that point, was the intense fear that had pervaded him. He knew that if he failed—and in what, he couldn't quite remember—he could never go home. The Howling Commando's had been gone from their afterlife too long, and would not be able to take him with them when they were pulled back.

He felt a cool hand on his neck, and he was pulled jarringly back to the present.

"You're alive, you're whole," Loki promised softly.

He looked up.

"I remember everything."

Something—regret, or sadness, Steve wasn't sure—swam in Loki's eyes. He sighed and offered the captain a helping hand. Steve took it, stumbling when he came to his feet, and it took a moment to orientate himself to the world around him. Loki didn't pull away, as if expecting Steve to collapse again, and the captain was glad for his presence.

His stomach still churned, and he thought he might be sick again. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Just... give me a moment."

Loki didn't say anything, but he put a bracing hand on the small of Steve's back, and he was thankful to have a connection something solid, something living. Stumbling corpses eyed them distrustfully, but largely left them alone. With a great rumble, the swollen skies loosed its rain of blood, and they were both soon soaked.

"I hate this place," Steve ground out. "We better get moving." Action was better than staying here, accompanied only by his memories. Tears sprung unbidden to his eyes, but he didn't worry about wiping them away. The blood rain would handle it.

Loki stayed by his side. It seemed they were on a path, like a twisted version of Dorothy's Yellow Brick Road, but instead of cheerful bricks, it was filled with crushed bones and lined by femurs and other long bones of the body. Some were obviously human, but a great number were from creatures Steve didn't recognize; seem to belong to things he was sure had never existed on earth.

They traveled in silence, accompanied only by the booming thunder and the piteous cries of the dead. Hel's imposing fortress was the only definable feature on the horizon, and it soon became apparent that their path was leading them straight to it.

When Steve could no longer bear the cries of the dead, he nudged Loki.

"What you said in the cave when I was a skull, did you mean that?"

His companion glanced at him.

"I rarely say things I do not mean, and I am not in the habit of lying to one who has crossed Niflheim to save me."

Steve grinned.

"Sometimes, you're an all right guy."

"Don't let it get out, or my reputation is ruined," Loki said dryly.

Steve laughed, and it felt good. The Howling Commandos were gone, and he missed Bucky fiercely, but against all expectations, Loki had become his confidant and his friend.

If nothing else, he was glad he remembered Loki's speech in the Serpent's cave. It was almost worth everything else he'd endured.

The sense of levity fell away as they grew closer.

Hel's fortress, Steve thought, was what a proper fortress was meant to be, but instead of stone, the thing was built almost entirely of bone. Giant skulls with imposing teeth were embedded over the portcullis, and the drops of rain gathered in the empty sockets and fell down boney cheeks, and it looked as though they cried tears of blood.

Two giants stood at the closed drawbridge. Great halberds clutched in massive hands, and Steve hoped furtively that they would not have to fight. He began reaching for his shield, but Loki reached out, stilling his hand.

"These are the guardians of Hel's palace, Eljudnir. They are named Ganglot and Ganglati, and mean us no harm."

Steve let his hand fall away, and steeled himself. Although he'd met all manner of strange creature while in Loki's company, he could never get used to their archaic phrasing. It was always as if there were a set of unspoken rules that each party had to abide by, or risk causing great offense.

Loki inclined his head as they drew closer to the giants, and Loki paused several paces away.

"Ganglot, Ganglati, we seek an audience with your queen."

The giants both looked troubled. One of them turned and began lowering the drawbridge. The other one said, "Loki Fate-Breaker and Sky Traveler, it is well that you are here. Perhaps you can cure our queen of what ails her. She has grown ill, and we fear what it means for the realm."

"Such an illness has also passed over Asgard. It is my utmost intent to find a cure."

"Then you shall pass."

Loki inclined his head and began moving forward. But as Steve came abreast of the giant that had spoken, he dropped his halberd. Steve tensed, looking up at the creature. But instead of anger, his face was lit with something akin to awe.

"Are you the Midgardian, the one they call 'The Captain?'"

"Well, I _am_ a captain, if that's what you mean."

"You have freed our lady. We have not seen her so ebullient in years, and for the first time in an age, she looks as she once did. If you and the Fate-breaker are working together, our heart gladdens. If you could spit on the Fates, you can surely do this."

"We'll try our best," Steve said in his best authoritative PR voice. The giant gave him a toothy grin and raised his halberd. When they were out of hearing, Steve turned to Loki. "What was that about?"

"You did what every manner of creature in all the realms tried—and failed—to do. You freed us from the ties that bound us."

"I didn't mean to," Steve said honestly as they resumed their walk. Ghosts drifted along beside them, and the massive tapestries that lined the walls depicted great battles. Steve couldn't help but look, and was amazed to see that, unlike Asgard's tapestries, these moved, the battles carried out in real-time. It was very gruesome and strangely fascinating.

"Perhaps that is why you succeeded," Loki mused.

As they reached the throne room, Steve could see the figure of a lithe, fine-boned woman collapsed in a chair of skulls and bones. At their footfalls, she looked up. A ghastly scar marred an otherwise beautiful face that was drawn in pain.

When muddy brown eyes met his, her face broke into a tired smile and she drew herself up, running a hand through mussed hair.

"Steve Rogers, I had thought to never see you again."

From everything Steve had heard and read about Hel, he had been lead to assume she was a miserable old hag, but the goddess that looked down at them appeared to be none of these things.

For a collection of stories that dictated the lives of the gods, Steve wondered how they'd screwed up the description of Hel so badly.

"The pleasure is mine," Steve said, bowing slightly. He caught the strange look Loki gave him as he straightened.

"You were in sorry shape, when last we met. I did not expect you to survive, but rather would finally be allowed to grace the hallowed realm of your own people. In all my years, I have never seen the dead act that way—to come for another as your band of humans did. I also did not expect a team of living souls to brave my kingdom."

"They are my team, and my friends, and I would do the same for them."

"I do not doubt it," Hel said, coughing into her hand. When the fit ended, she sank back into the throne, and Steve could see blood on her pale hand. "I am dying," she gave a sardonic chuckle.

"This sickness has spread across Asgard. My mother was one of the first to fall ill, and I cannot rouse her or the All-father."

"This is our punishment, for rebelling against our destiny," Hel sighed. "You came because you thought I might have answers. I do not."

"It's my fault," Steve realized abruptly, only belatedly realizing he'd spoken aloud. He had had aninkling, back in Asgard, that he was somehow at least partially responsible for the affliction. After all, The Aesir had existed for millennia and the only thing that had changed was his accidental disruption to their Sagas.

And as it turned out, that was a pretty big deal.

"Maybe, Captain, but I would have it no other way. Better to die free than chained to those damned ancient chronicles another day."

"What will happen to the dead?" Loki asked. "And to the Aesir. They have not died in battle…"

"You fear they will come here." Hel coughed again, and then time the fit caused her to double over. Blood splattered brightly against the bleached bone. She breathed raggedly as she straightened, her eyes dull. "Perhaps. I cannot say. For the first time since Odin All-father made me queen of this realm, I am afraid. But if this is the price for my freedom, I pay it willingly."

"I did not mean for this to happen," Steve swore, panic forming in his chest. Hel seemed rather accepting of her looming death, but he'd just found out rather abruptly that he was the architect of the genocide of an entire race. He felt his knees go weak, and his stomach churn uncomfortably.

"It is precisely because you did not mean for it to happen that it _did_. The Fates never counted on that. They never counted on _you_." Hel chuckled wetly, as if delighted by the irony of the situation.

Steve saw Loki gave him a considering look, and something shifted slightly in his face. He turned back to the goddess. "We might discuss philosophy and the Fates ad nauseum, but I fear we must hasten back to Asgard for we have yet to find a cure.

"We thank you for your time," he bowed, and Steve belatedly followed suit.

Hel inclined her head, and the couple turned to go when the queen called after them.

"Oh—Captain," she called sweetly, and Steve turned. She threw something out, which he caught instinctively. Looking down, he saw it was a tiny bone, fairly insignificant. He was about to ask what it was, but he was suddenly encompassed by the memory of when he was five years old.

His father had taken him fishing, and they'd sat in the boat beneath the warm June sun for hours. He'd caught a tiny sunfish, and his father had helped him unhook the barb and throw the fish back into the lake. It'd swum away, a silver ribbon that quickly disappeared beneath the murky waters.

The servants had packed lunch, and they picnicked on the shore, the sun dappling through the grand old maple that shaded them. They sat on the lakeshore until nightfall, when the frogs began singing back and forth at each other, and the lightning bugs erupted out of the grass.

He experienced the whole day in less than the time it took to blink, and he gasped. There was nothing significant about it—he'd forgotten it entirely—just a day spent under a lazy sun with his dad.

"I took that bone when your team collected all that was left of you. I have lived that day a thousand times since you left. It is the happiest I have been in three thousand years. I thank you for the freedom you have given me, and a day of happiness from your childhood."

Steve threw the bone back, and Hel caught it, her eyes widening in surprise. The memory was gone, but he could still remember the warmth he'd gotten from it.

"Keep it," he said. "I think you need it more than me."

Hel smiled, and there was no bitterness, no fear. And for one brief second, she was a beautiful young woman, unmarred by time and a life of cynicism.

"I will not forget your kindness. Now, be off. You have better things to do than spend your time in the realm of a dying queen. Oh—and Loki? Have you thought to ask Ratatoskr? He speaks to the great eagle, and would know better than anyone about the events transpiring. He may even know the location of your lost human."

"I will take your advice." Loki inclined his head.

"Thank you," Steve added, as he searched his brain for the significance of Ratatoskr . He'd read the sagas from cover to cover, but there were so many names that were so foreign, it was hard to keep it straight.

"You are my equal, I do not expect thanks."

"Your equal?" He echoed.

"You _are_ King of Asgard, or have I been ill informed?"

Steve shifted his weight.

"No, you're right."

"I bet the Fates never counted on _that_," Hel cackled, but it dissolved into a coughing fit. Her eyes filled with tears as she strained for breath. "Go, I do not care to be remembered this way."

Loki nudged Steve, and they made to leave. When they had cleared the gates, the Trickster was grinning. Steve shot him a look.

"What?"

"I do believe the Queen of the Damned has a crush on you, Steve Rogers."

"Oh, shut up," he scowled, could feel his cheeks reddening. Loki chortled, and they headed back the way they'd come.

When they got back to Asgard, Steve relayed what they'd found out to the Avengers.

"So we're to talk to this guy named Ratatoskr?" Tony said. "And who's he?"

"He," Loki broke in, "is the squirrel that travels Yggdrasil."

"Uh, and so this rodent is supposed to have all the answers?"

"He should know of Banner's whereabouts, and may have more answers for us, besides."

"So I'm just going to point out that it looks like you just ate something sour," Tony said. "Beyond Ratatoskr being a talking squirrel—and okay, while weird, not surprising all things considered—what _aren't_ you telling us?"

"He is… tricky."

"A tricky squirrel," Tony sighed. "Fucking fantastic. I don't know what I expected. Okay, so when do we leave? And don't leave us on body duty—hanging out in a world of dying gods isn't exactly the adventure of a lifetime. It's driving me a little crazy. I feel like I keep on seeing things moving out of the corner of my eye."

Knowing that Hel's dead were leaking out, and now having a better appreciation for the things the team had endured, Steve knew Tony's statement though callous, was a thinly veiled admittance to his fear.

And he probably wasn't wrong about things moving just outside of his vision. Steve had experienced the same. He'd been willing to tick it off to tapestries in the wind and the general creepiness of Asgard's empty halls, but now that he knew the dead were leaking into the world, he couldn't be so sure.

"You said it yourself," Natasha said, "The Bifrost is closed so nobody will come here. And if we don't find out what's ailing the Aesir, our only purpose served is to watch them grow sicker and die."

Steve considered her argument before he nodded. "Okay. We'll go. It's too late to start today, so we'll start at first light."

"We must move with haste," Loki argued. "They are not getting better, and will not wait on us dallying."

"I know that, but we're no use to them exhausted. If something happens and we have to fight, we'll be at half strength, and we're even less use to them dead."

The god grit his teeth and stormed away. Steve knew where he was headed, and he'd catch up with him once he'd addressed the team.

"You all have done good work. Get some rest, and we'll meet in the throne room at sunrise."

Tony and Clint looked relieved, and they headed off, shoulders bowed in exhaustion. Natasha hung around, and once they were alone, she said, "Thanks, Steve."

"Somebody has to look after you guys," he said. "A bunch of self-destructive people if I've ever seen it."

"Walk with me." Natasha ordered as she left the eerie room, filled with the nearly dead, and Steve obliged. He was suddenly bone weary. He realized they'd not slept in a full two days—it had been too important to find all the gods and collect them, and the mission to Niflheim couldn't wait.

She navigated the empty halls and to the massive veranda that surrounded the throne room. Leaning against the marble balustrade, she motioned for Steve to join her. They watched the setting sun in silence, propped up by the railing. When the first stars appeared she said, "You remember."

"Yeah," he admitted.

She nodded, and they fell back into silence. Just as Steve was ready to fall asleep standing up, glad for the opportunity to just hang out with no expectations; no mention of their journey tomorrow, she began speaking again.

"I'm going to head to sleep. We're all racking out in the room Frigga put Tony in. You're welcome to join us."

Steve straightened, felt the bones in his spine pop. His muscles ached, and his eyes were heavy.

"I should find Loki. He's not saying it, but he's worried about Frigga, about Thor."

"His entire race is dying. We haven't said it in so many words, but if we don't find a cure, they're not going to make it. I didn't say this before, but I don't think a few of them will survive through the night. I might be wrong, but…" she trailed off.

"Regardless of Loki's tumultuous relationship with his people, I imagine it's a bit like family. You can fight and you can hate them for a day, but in the end, they're blood, and they're all your got. And he's about to lose everyone he's ever known."

"And just when things were starting to get better," he sighed. "I'll go make sure he's okay, and then I'll be in." Steve wasn't keen to spend the night alone in a realm full of ghosts.

"Sure. And Cap? Take care of yourself. You don't have to carry the world on your shoulders alone—that's what we're here for."

He gave her a tired smile.

"Let me walk you back." He held out the crook of his arm, and she slipped her arm into it. "Can't let Clint see us like this," he cautioned.

"Clint is my best friend, but he'll probably never be any more than that," she said as they passed through the towering doorway of the throne room.

"He loves you, you know." He would've never admitted it if he were well rested, and if he didn't feel like ghosts dogged his every step. They whispered a thousand million regrets. _I should have _and _I wish…_ and _If only…_ They'd grown bolder in the moonlight, their wispy forms tracing their path down the halls, and he could no longer deny their presence.

From the way Nat's eyes darted from side to side, he knew she saw them too.

"I know," she sighed. "I don't know what to do. I love him, too. But…"

"I know," he said, pulling her closer to his side, thankful for her warmth. Between the ghosts and the encroaching winter, there was a definite chill in the air, and nothing good had ever come from the cold. If he were being Captain Rogers, World War 2 PR representative and morale builder, he'd offer her rallying words about how love would find a way, and things would work out. If he were acting as the leader of the Avengers, he'd tell her that she'd overcome the difficulties but to be careful—relationships could ruin a team.

In the dark of the halls, he was only Steve Rogers, and he could not offer the solution to her woes.

When they arrived at the door to the shared chamber, he squeezed her arm. She pulled him into an awkward hug, and he froze before returning the embrace.

"Thank you."

"A walk in the moonlight with a lovely lady? The pleasure is mine," he replied kindly as he pulled away, and she smiled briefly.

"See you in the morning, Cap."

"Sleep well."

She closed the heavy door behind her, and Steve found himself alone in the company of ghosts. They regarded him silently, and he resigned himself to their presence. The ghosts leaked such despair and regret, that the distance between the chambers he'd just left and Frigga's seemed almost insurmountable.

Although the halls were massive, he'd learned to navigate them by the grand tapestries and statues, and he found his way to Frigga's bedroom chamber in fairly short order. The intricately carved oak doors were cracked, and he could see Loki slumped over his mother's still form, her hand clasped in his own.

He was sure he'd never seen his bonded look so forlorn.

He pushed the door open, and it creaked. Loki started, his face shuttering closed for a moment, before relaxing back into open anguish.

"Her breathing has grown ragged. What sort of son am I, that I cannot return the favor of life to my ailing mother?" He looked up and stilled, his face growing even paler in the moonlight. Steve realized the god was looking over his shoulder, and he turned.

Although most of the ghosts had paused at the entrance, one had followed him in. He was an old man, with a great gray beard and a harp clutched in his gnarled hands. Steve realized he recognized him—had seen him in attendance at one of the feasts held in the Avenger's honor. He'd opened the ceremony with a beautiful tune from his stringed instrument.

"Bragi," Loki said.

Natasha had been right. Some of the Aesir would not—had not—survived the night.

So Steve did the only thing he thought the dead god would respond to.

"As King, I command you to be gone." The phrasing was funny in his mouth, but the ghost responded, sputtering out with a single strand of discordant harp chords.

When he was gone and they were alone, Frigga's rasping breaths were loud in the silence. Loki had pulled up a chair next to his mother, but Steve thought it would be disrespectful to drag one of the great wooden chairs across the floor, so he remained standing.

Steve had stood vigil over his own mother in her last days. She'd urged him to leave her, could not stand for his last memories of her to be so decrepit. But he promised he would not remember her that way, and that he would not leave her side.

It was a lie. In all his years, he had never been able to shake the image of his mother sunken against the ragged pillows, a tattered blanket pulled up around her. Her cheeks were hollow, her once luxurious hair stringy and ill kept.

As he'd watched and waited, her breathing had grown ragged, the heaving of her chest slowing. He'd tried to breathe with her, wondered how she was getting enough oxygen to live at all. When a rattle marked every breath, he knew it wouldn't be long—that she would not survive the night.

When she'd died, he picked her up and carried her to the undertaker that had prepared his father.

"Please," he asked. "We don't have money, but I will pay you in services rendered."

"I'm sorry, son. I barely have money to keep my own family fed, and I cannot accept charity. I cannot, in good conscience and knowing your health, ask you to work for me. I'm sorry," he'd repeated before closing the door in Steve's face.

"How did your survive?" Loki broke Steve's reminisces. "When your mother died?"

Steve knew he could deny the impending death of Frigga. But Loki was not stupid, and he suspected that any attempts to deny her fate would be met with derision.

"Bucky," Steve replied. "He refused to let me grieve for too long. He was always pulling me out, making me go to the dance hall and walk around town with him. Before the war, we tried to join a few work teams for the projects set up by President Roosevelt. Due to my health, I wasn't as helpful as I should've been. I found out after her death that she'd saved a little money to send me to school. So, I went to school and drew editorial comics for the paper and helped pay for our apartment while Bucky worked."

When he was a child and they'd still owned their Brownstone and vacationed in Cape May, he'd always assumed his parents would live forever—long enough, anyway, for them to dote on their grandkids, and maybe their great grandkids, because although he knew, conceptually, that his parents were to die, he'd not truly understood what it meant.

His father had owned a rocking chair bequeathed to him by his father, and which he promised to will to Steve when his time came. After one of his asthma attacks, his father would pull him up on the chair, rubbing his chest, a pipe hanging loosely from his mouth, and tell him stories of when he was a kid Steve's age and the wild adventures he'd gone on, and Steve would live vicariously through him.

When he'd died and they lost their fortune, that chair had been the first thing to go. His mother said she couldn't bear to look at it, and Steve realized the dreams he'd dreamed were just the fantasies of a child.

He didn't know how to tell Loki any of this, didn't think it would help, even if he could.

There was nothing in any of the worlds that could ease the passing of a parent.

When the breath in Frigga's chest rattled in a way that was entirely too familiar, he asked, "Do you want me to go?"

"No."

And when she drew her last breath, Loki pulled to her breast and cried, his chest heaving silently, the pale moonlight tracing rivers of silver tears as they ran down his cheeks, and Steve rubbed circles on Loki's back.

And when the first rays of the rising sun peeked over the balcony and Frigga's body had grown cold, he said, "It's time to go."

Loki lifted his mother's corpse and carried her to the ancestral halls, laying her to rest before the statue carved in her likeness.

When they met the team in the throne room, they took one look at Loki's tear-streaked face and Steve's exhausted one, and he knew they knew what had transpired.

"Let's go find Ratatoskr," he said.

Chapter end.

A/N

Bragi is one of the newer gods in Norse mythology. He was meant to die on the tusks of the Dwarven battle-boar. Notably, his wife was Idunn, keeper of the apples of the gods. He's also the god of music and the harp and woke the world up in the morning with his harp music.

I volunteered for hospice and stood vigil over a woman dying. It was the first time that I realized what the death rattle is.


	6. I Grit My Teeth with the Solstice Grind

Chapter 6 I Grit My Teeth with the Solstice Grind

_I'm questioning what's been testing me_

_Might be my best years have bested me_

_And what most call prime_

_For me, was decline_

_And I'm just now recovering_

_Even if Christ's hand touched us all_

_Wouldn't we remain to be creatures of the fall?_

_Insomuch that he was touched_

_Lazarus got old and died and he's buried now_

The Ides—Me Like Bees

Loki was reticent on their journey across Asgard's plains, and he walked ahead of them, a god ghosting amongst the plains. Steve made no effort to catch up; knew that the his bonded would seek him out when he was ready to talk but understood that sometimes a man needed to be alone; to feel his way out in a strange new world he'd never expected himself to walk.

Just as Steve had only vaguely understood the concept of death as a child, he could appreciate that the idea was even more remote for a realm of immortals. Unlike Steve, Loki had never had to steel himself against the eventuality of his mother's death. Even the Sagas, such as they were, had remained quiet on the issue.

So they followed Loki across the plains, a towering yew tree reaching above the canopy of the encroaching forest. Natasha walked beside him, and Clint and Tony trailed behind. Tony, as he was wont to do, was commenting under his breath, and Steve could hear Clint chuckling whenever he said something particularly clever.

He knew Tony needed the relief offered by his black sense of humor, and that Clint needed to be able to laugh at something, so Steve didn't say anything about it. At least Stark had the decency to keep his comments quiet.

"So this is Yggdrasil," Natasha said, as they grew closer.

"That big tree?" He peered at the tree—it's trunk was so great that the canopy was somewhere above the low-lying clouds. Even from a distance, it was almost immeasurably large, and he could barely begin to comprehend how old the tree must be.

"All of it," Nat said as they pushed past the young trees on the edge of the forest. "These are all yew trees. I expect they're all progeny of the big tree in center—see?" She motioned to the trunk of the nearest trees. "They're all the same. Nothing else grows here."

"I didn't know you knew about trees," he said, looking at the non-descript coniferous foliage she indicated.

She shrugged. "I wasn't always an assassin, or an Avenger."

And while it was true—he hadn't always been Captain America, so she couldn't have always been Black Widow—he realized he knew next to nothing about Nat's past.

"You've never talked about your what came before," he commented. She glanced at him.

"Some things are best left behind us," she said, and he knew well enough to leave the subject alone.

"The trees don't look particularly healthy though, do they?" He asked, brushing his hands over the browned needles. She shook her head.

"No, you're right. I think it's getting worse, too, the closer we get to the big tree. Trees this young shouldn't be browning like this—it looks like the whole forest is dying." She trailed off.

"You're thinking about something."

"It's just that—there was an article in the _Times_ just recently about how the Yew might be the next American Elm. They're trying to keep the spread of the fungus localized, but…" she trailed off. "But I mean, what if these trees are all related, and the causative agent didn't come from Asia at all, but originated here?"

"You think that because this tree is sick, all of the ones on earth might be, too? That seems a little far fetched."

"Maybe," Natasha said, "But maybe not. I don't know how all this Norse stuff works. Thor was really good at explaining it—" she cut off when she'd realized she'd spoken loud enough for Loki to her. The god's shoulders tensed, and he held his head a little higher. She dropped her voice. "Do you think he'll be okay?" She asked, switching tracks.

Steve looked at Loki's tense figure. He'd walked angrily across the fields, and stormed across the forest floor now. His hands were balled at his side, and though Steve couldn't see his face, he didn't have to. He'd been there once, too, and nothing in the world could relieve the grief he'd felt.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Even knowing everything he knew about his destiny, I don't think he ever expected he'd actually have to witness the death of his mother, of his people."

"Immortality is only a gift as long as everyone is healthy," the Black Widow observed. He looked at her and noted, not for the first time, the faint lines gathering at the corner of her eyes and mouth.

"Truer words have never been spoken."

Natasha suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm, squeezing it tightly.

"You're worried about us," she realized. "Because you are immortal, and we aren't."

Steve gave her a considering look. He wondered how she could be so wise, how discerning in nearly everything. He nodded slightly and said, "I don't want to talk about it."

"No," she said, "I don't suppose you do. But if what you said is true, and Ragnarök's timeline has become rushed, maybe you don't need to worry about it at all."

It was dark advice, and Steve could read the subtext. She was telling him to soldier up, and to leave his moping for when he could afford it.

"And anyway," she added, "Out of all of us, the only one that has died are the immortals in the group, so it's hardly a golden ticket."

Stepping over a gnarled root, he frowned at her.

"Is that a reference to something?" He realized that his team had started making pop culture references less frequently, and he wondered if they'd done it out of consideration for him.

"I wonder what the country would think, if they knew their beloved Captain America is an out-of-touch romantic with a tendency for being maudlin?" She mused, a slight smile on her face.

"Well, that's hardly fair," he returned lightly. "I'm like a walking museum. Who else can claim to have attended one of the first Talkies?" It almost hurt to admit it, because he remembered _The Jazz Singer_ with startling alacrity. He'd been nine years old, and his parents had dressed up and taken him to the finest theatre in Brooklyn.

His father, Steve now realized, had already begun the slow slide into the alcoholism that would later claim him. At the part of the movie when Jack sang "Kol Nidre" for his dying father, his own father had teared up, and at nine years old, he hadn't understood why.

"I mean," Steve continued, refusing to grow maudlin, "how many people do you know can say they saw _The Wizard of Oz_ or _Gone with the Wind_ on opening day?"

"Oh, loads of people."

"Really?" Steve raised his brows.

"Sure—all the ladies down at the nursing home."

Steve was about to reply when Loki interrupted.

"We are here."

"Here" was the trunk of a tree so massive in size, so daunting, that Steve found it hard to truly appreciate the size of the thing. It looked like a wall made from wood.

But this close to the trunk of the World Tree, Steve could see the black bark that indicated infection, and he knew, without being told, that the tree was sick. He could tell from the set of Loki's jaw that his bonded recognized it, too. Casting an apologetic look at Natasha, he moved forward.

"How do we find the squirrel?" He said, refusing to acknowledge the blight that sickened the wood.

"He will be about, presently," Loki promised. Steve frowned. He'd been around Loki enough to know that his appreciation of time was drastically different than Steve's. He was grateful that they'd raided the food stores before their journey. "Presently" could very well mean "days."

He turned to address the team.

"Ratatoskr should be here soon," he promised. "We should use this opportunity to chow down."

Natasha had been close enough to hear the transaction, discerning enough to understand what it meant, and so she loudly said, "I _am_ hungry. Let's break out the grub."

After they'd eaten, Steve took advantage of the downtime to grab some shut-eye. In more ways than one, this mission reminded him of his old war-time operations, and then, as well as now, he knew to grab sleep when it was available. Leaning up against one of the yew trees—clearly older than the saplings that bordered the forest—he promised he'd be up in a few minutes; just need a little rest.

When Natasha's hand on his shoulder shook him from his nap, he realized that hours had passed. The canopy of the forest had darkened, and the song of night insects replaced the birdsong. He rubbed the sleep away from his eyes.

"You should've woken me up earlier," he complained.

"Why?" She asked wryly, sitting back on her haunches. "So you could hurry up and wait with the rest of us? Don't worry about it—we've been taking rotations on watch, and you needed the sleep."

"Did Loki get some rest?"

Natasha shook her head. "No, he's stood in the same spot since we got here." She indicated Loki's still form. "He hasn't spoken, hasn't moved. I figured I'd wake you up to grab dinner—Clint's got something going—and we'll just hang out until that squirrel gets here."

"I'll go on first watch," he offered. "Might as well," he said before she could protest. "None of us have slept well since we got here."

She nodded, and stood up in a smooth motion, pulling Steve to his feet with a proffered arm, and they headed over to the campfire.

It was a small thing, built entirely from the deadfall of the forest, and as the sun sank lower on the horizon, within the shade of the many ash trees, it grew dark quickly.

Steve put together a small plate of the things they'd requisitioned from Asgard's pantries, and brought it over to Loki. When his bonded tried to refuse it, the captain pushed it into his hands.

"You need to eat," he insisted.

"I'm not hungry."

"I can understand that. But if there's anything I've learned about these worlds and about war, it's that you need to sleep and eat when you get the chance."

"We're not in a war," Loki said in a brittle voice. "It would be well if we were."

"You don't mean that," Steve returned quietly. Loki didn't reply for a long time, but he gradually began eating from the proffered food. As they stood in silence, the warmth of the fire to their backs, Steve thought it would be beautiful here, if the forest wasn't obviously so sick and dying and if the sense of apprehension he'd had since returning to Asgard didn't sit so heavily.

He felt a presence at his back, and Natasha came to rest beside him. A quick glance behind him told him that both Clint and Tony had bedded down, their backs to the fire.

"I told you I'd take first watch," he said mildly.

"I can't sleep after I've just eaten," she returned. "Wow—up close, the tree isn't looking so great, is it?"

This close to the trunk of the world tree, its sickness was evident. Large swaths of bark had fallen away, leaving smooth wood behind. Discolorations marked the path of the worm that had taken Natasha walked up and ran her hands over the wood.

"Trees can survive losing their outer bark, but these worms have burrowed into the inner bark, the phloem, which is the pipeline through which the food is passed to the tree. That wouldn't be such a big deal but," she knocked on an exposed area of great trunk. "This is the sapwood—the tree's pipeline for moving water up to the leaves. It's what makes the rings of a tree, and the worms are chewing through that, too."

"What's that mean?" He asked her, but Loki answered first.

"It means Yggdrasil is dying."

"Well, that can't be good," Steve mused, and Loki's silence was all the conformation he needed. "What happens, when the tree dies?"

"I do not know," the god admitted. "It was never written about. In the Sagas, when my people had died, two Midgardians—Lif and Ask were meant to find refuge in Hoddmimis holt—a forest connected to Yggdrasil. It is from them that generations would spring, and humanity would survive."

"So, Ragnarök was never meant to be confined to your people," Nat clarified, and Steve wondered how he could've missed it—if the mythology was to be taken as law, then earth was in trouble, too.

"Yes—it will burn and everyone will die."

"Leaving the semantics of genetic bottle necking aside—what will happen now that it's all been erased?"

Loki regarded her, as if he were just seeing her for the first time.

"I do not know." He turned back to the trunk, and Steve thought he was done speaking, but he continued. "I thought it was a gift, to be free of all the things I had always known would happen. Perhaps I was wrong."

"Welcome to humanity," the Black Widow replied glibly.

"If this is what it is like to be one of you, then you can keep it," Loki said, with a hint of levity in his voice. Steve shot Nat a grateful look, and she winked back.

She had made a wind change. No matter how well Steve knew his team, Natasha always seemed to know them better. She had the uncanny ability to observe anyone and ascertain where he or she was coming from. It was, he thought, what made her such a great assassin, and an even better teammate.

She had, and Steve would admit this readily, had actually lived more years on the earth than he. Not by many maybe, but she'd cultivated herself to be a study of man. She was an invaluable resource and further, an invaluable friend.

He was glad to have her on his side.

"I often wonder what trees would say if they had voices?" She wondered aloud. It was almost out of character, for her to sound so whimsical, but Steve caught the way she was looking at Loki.

"Do you know, I was in Central Park a few weeks ago, and I saw a willow there that had been a sapling when I was a kid," Steve said.

"Has Tony had you watch Lord of the Rings, yet?"

"Yeah—all three of them. There were no intermissions," he griped lightly. "I don't know what you people do without the pause button."

0o0o0o0

Steve was still on watch when he heard the scratching. Pausing even his breathing, he waited and listened.

Steve wasn't sure what he expected when he'd first read a giant squirrel ran the World Tree, but he felt as though he shouldn't have been as surprised as he was when a man-sized squirrel with a tail almost as big as Steve made its way down the World Tree. It moved much slower than any squirrel Steve had ever seen on earth, and more than a little erratically, like it was drunk.

Or sick, he realized with a sinking heart as he noticed the scraggly tail in the pre-dawn light. As Ratatoskr grew closer, Steve shot a look at Loki. The god was still resting, and he was loathe to wake him.

The tree rat slipped to the ground, landing with a decidedly ungraceful _thud_. Steve moved forward carefully. He'd always been taught that erratic-acting animals were meant to be treated with caution and that, more likely than not, that they carried rabies.

In his day, rabies had been a death sentence. As he was to understand it, they had a cure for it now, but he still approached the squirrel carefully.

"You must be Ratatoskr," he said when he was close enough that he could speak without waking his exhausted team.

"And you," the squirrel replied, "must be the boy-king, Steve Rogers."

"Well," Steve replied primly, "You're a talking squirrel, so I don't know who you are to be calling people 'boy king'. I'm Captain Steve Rogers, leader of the Avengers and previously of the Howling Commandos. Currently, I preside over Asgard."

The squirrel chuckled.

"A humorous boy full of self-worth, but still a boy. Where is Loki? I am here because the Sky Traveller called me. You may be a King, but you're no king of mine, and I don't answer you."

"He is indisposed," Steve responded primly.

"I'm a squirrel, not a blind squirrel. He's sleeping. Go wake him so that the adults can talk."

Steve felt his irritation spike, but he quelled it. He could only imagine Tony's teasing if he managed to get into a fight with a squirrel.

"No," he said. "You'll talk to me. Loki's mother died yesterday, and he needs the rest. I am King of Asgard, and you will treat me accordingly."

He certainly didn't feel like king of anything, but if he'd learned anything, it was that the denizens of Asgard respected titles. They were less inclined towards diplomacy and eager for a show of force. It was a wonder they'd made it this far without dissolving into petty in fighting and civil wars.

Ratatoskr drummed his nails against the tree.

"Very well," he finally agreed. "I will speak with you because, as you said, Frigga is dead."

"And you're sick," Steve pointed out. The squirrel scowled at him, its furry face revealing tiny, sharp teeth. He continued, "I think that whatever made her sick, has made you ill, too. If you can tell me where Bruce Banner is, we might be able to figure out what is happening."

"You think too highly of your race," the squirrel sneezed. "What do the humans know?"

"Where is Bruce?" Steve ground out.

Ratatoskr sighed and he shifted his weight. His yellow-green eyes were sallow, and his skin sunken. Steve could see his ribs, and all the fur in the world couldn't hide the bones that poked through gray skin.

"I like him, but I do not care for you. He will be by presently. I alerted him of your presence, but he was far away. He has learned a lot, but not enough, I think, to save us. This is your doing, and yours alone. It matters not whether you intended this, but there was an order, a way of things, and you ruined it."

"'It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.'"

"A trite saying, made by a trite people. We were happy."

"If that were true, then why did Frigga orchestrate this alternate destiny at all?" And as Steve asked it, he realized it was true. Frigga had been a discerning woman, and although she'd never spoken openly of her prescience, as far as he was aware, she'd always known exactly what would, what _could_ happen, if she didn't earn a promise from the mistletoe.

She'd gained the sworn oath from everything on all the worlds that they would not harm her son Balder, and yet, she had skipped the mistletoe. Thor had insisted it was because the plant was below her recognition.

But Steve knew that a mother would not overlook anything that might cause harm to her child. If she had been as persistent as she'd claimed, she would've spent the time to garner the oath from the mistletoe, too. She certainly had enough time to do so.

Loki would say it was because she'd always known that the mistletoe was needed to bring Balder's death, to herald Ragnarök, and that he, Loki, was the architect.

But Steve realized that Frigga had seen the loophole. She'd kept the mistletoe unsworn because she knew it was the only way to stay the destruction of all the worlds. It had been a gamble, but one she was willing to make.

And if he was right, then it meant she'd always known she would have to die.

"You are more clever than you look," Ratatoskr acknowledged reluctantly, "for a human. You are right; Frigga and I had spoken on occasion. I am not prescient, but the Eagle is, and although the Sagas spelled out one destiny, he saw that many existed. She sought to mine an alternate route to the ones laid out by the Fates."

"Does the Eagle know what's going to happen?"

The squirrel shrugged.

"I do not care for him and anyway, he has gotten sick, too, and is not inclined to verbosity."

"Tell me, Ratatoskr, did Frigga mention that she knew what alternating the word of the Fates would do? That you might die?"

He hadn't mentioned it to Loki, but he had the growing suspicion that when everything was done, everything that the god had grown up as Law would be thrown in upset. The dying forest was evidence enough, and he suspected it was the tip of the iceberg. For a religion that hinged its entire sense of self off a tree, for it to die, too, would undo everything they believed in.

A year ago, Steve would've been gladdened by the news, but now he wasn't so sure. He'd finally accepted that his Christian God was not the only one that ruled the destinies of man, but he hadn't figured out how all the pieces fit together yet, and the death of an immortal world was a wretched thing any way he looked at it.

"I always knew it," the squirrel admitted, and he looked tired. "It's a farce."

"What is?"

"All of it," Ratatoskr said with a sweep of his meager tail. "One day, you'll appreciate that we're all just pieces in a game much bigger than ourselves."

"I already do," he replied honestly. "But if you think we're too small to matter, you're wrong."

"… Perhaps you are worthy of the title of "king" after all. You have not hung yourself from Yggdrasil to gain your wisdom, but I guess I cannot expect too much from a human."

"If it counts for anything, Loki made me immortal," Steve offered, deciding he wasn't too keen to hang himself from anything to prove his worth.

"It does not," the squirrel snapped, "but I suppose it will have to do." He sighed. "There was a time when I ran between the boughs of Yggdrasil and spread discord between the Eagle and the worm, Nidhogg. It was great fun, but I fear my time is over. It belongs to you and yours, for all the pain it brings. The one you call Bruce approaches, and I must take my leave. My time is gone."

Before Steve could engage him further, the squirrel scampered up the great torn trunk of the World Tree, and into the clouds. There was a great creaking sound, and he looked around for its source. Finding none, he chewed on his cheek. What would he tell the team when they'd camped out for so long to find neither Ratatoskr nor Bruce?

Before he could ponder the matter any further, Bruce's slight form curled around the tree. Instead of the khaki pants and white-pressed shirt Steve had grown accustomed to seeing him in, he was in a leather jerkin the color of leaves on a summer's day, and brown leather trousers to match. He held a knapsack over his shoulder, and while he'd always been wise and clever, Steve could see the weary knowledge in his eyes.

The Hulk loomed behind him.

"Welcome back," he said, his eyes on Banner's beast.

"Steve," Bruce said. "Yggdrasil's dying," and he collapsed in exhaustion.

Steve was there to catch him before he hit the ground. Shouldering the man, he brought him to their campfire, where he laid him to rest.

Clint and Natasha, who were light sleepers on the best of days, were awake instantly.

"What happened?" Natasha asked, making a pillow out of Bruce's knapsack.

"I don't know," Steve replied honestly, and he was suddenly very tired. "But I think he's going to sleep for a while, so get some shut eye."

"You get it," Clint said. "I'll take watch. You've been up all night: you need the sleep as well as anybody."

"Okay," he agreed, sinking to the loam. It was as welcoming as any bed, and he felt sleep pulling at him. He tried to fight it, but Clint clapped his back.

"It's okay, Cap. I've got this."

He nodded, his eyes skittering over his teammates before resting on Loki's still form. His arms were crossed, his face still, but he looked back at Steve with ascertaining eyes, and Steve's last thought before he succumbed to unconsciousness was that Loki had been awake through his entire conversation with Ratatoskr; that he knew everything that happened.

He wanted to say, "I'm sorry" but the words wouldn't form in his mouth, and he fell into an exhausted sleep.

0o0o0o0o0o

Clint sat next to Natasha. The fire had burned low, but he poked at it with a stick. Even in daylight, it was chilly, and they needed the warmth. He added a log to the fire.

He suspected it would not be long until the entire forest was little more than dead wood, and the thought was disquieting.

If he'd known everything he knew now, he wondered if he'd have joined the Avengers. There was something to be said for hanging out in the rafters and firing bolts off at clearly villainous people. It had provided a structure in his life that he had lacked. "These guys are good, and these ones are bad. Handle it." And he had; was exceedingly good at it. Natasha had given him back grey in his admittedly monochromatic life, but she'd also given him the tools to harden himself against the world.

"Do you think it's going to be okay?" He asked her, poking at the fire.

"What?" She asked, her blue eyes looking up the trunk of the World Tree.

"I dunno. Everything, I guess."

Natasha looked at him.

"No," she said. "But we'll make do."

"How do you know?"

"I don't," she admitted. "But it has to be. One way or another, everything will work itself out."

Clint had been around her long enough to know when she was being cagey.

"Yeah, but will we?" He wasn't sure if he meant "we" as the team, or "we" as he and her. They'd gotten themselves in a lot of sticky situations, but they'd always managed to find a way out.

It was a hell of a lot muddier when the entire world was on the balance, and not some criminal cohort in Croatia.

"You realize it's not longer just "us" right? We could've bailed earlier, but not anymore."

He settled his head onto his folded knees, jabbing the fire with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

"I realize that," he said. "But the question still stands."

Natasha looked into the fire a long time. "I don't know," she admitted.

0o0o0o0o0o

Steve woke with a crick in his neck and the knowledge he'd been sleeping on a root. It jabbed into his side, and while it may not leave a bruise, he knew he'd feel it for a few hours, at least.

Rolling over, he found Bruce was already standing, the Hulk looming behind him. His brown eyes met Steve's, and he nodded in acknowledgement.

"I was waiting for you until I shared the knowledge I had."

"Shouldn't we be throwing, like, a welcome party?" Tony rubbed at his eyes. Without alcohol to fuel his sleep, he was catching up on needed rest hours. If nothing else, Steve knew he'd be able to return Tony to Pepper relatively well rested and, if they never found Odin's liquor cabinet, sober.

But when Bruce ignored Tony's glib comment, his face stern, Steve's heart sank a little lower, and he suspected he'd need a stiff drink himself if the news were as dire as Bruce's face belayed.

"We're going to war," Bruce said.

Chapter End

A/N

American Elms were once rampant across America, but were almost singularly wiped out by Dutch Elm Disease, a fungus introduced by the elm bark from Asia. In 2002, a similar bug—the emerald ash borer—was introduced to America, and has proved to be equally destructive.

Talkies, for the uninitiated, was the term given to movies when they moved from silent film to the productions we recognize today.

_The Jazz Singer_, starring Al Jolson, was indeed the first "talkie"

Here's a link to a tourist guide to Brooklyn in the 20's: /2014/01/23/thoughts_on_brooklyn_from_the_ #photo-1

A full snyposis of _The Jazz Singer_ can be found here: wiki/The_Jazz_Singer

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your needs" is a quote by Emiliano Zapata.


	7. Dulce et Decorum Est

Chapter 7 Dulce et decorum est  
Pro patria mori

_And when the wave approaches_

_Take our ashes to the ocean_

_Who cares if hell awaits?_

_We're having drinks at heaven's gate_

_Don't pray for us_

_We don't need no modern Jesus_

_To roll with us_

_The only rule we need is never_

_Giving up_

_The only faith we have is faith in us_

Modern Jesus—Portugal. The man.

"What do you mean, 'war'?" Tony asked coolly after Bruce's declaration.

"I can see why this may seem rather abrupt, but I have something to show you first. It'll start to make sense."

"Sure—okay," Steve agreed reluctantly. He wanted to ask for a report of Banner's journey, wanted to rally on Asgard's Hall and recuperate, but once the team had awoken, Bruce insisted on showing them his findings, and walked with such deliberation that Steve was hesitant to interrupt him.

Steve trailed behind Bruce, and Loki walked next to him, the rest of the team following closely. They were quiet. Even Tony, thankfully, or frighteningly, was mute. He seemed as curious about the changed Banner as the rest of him.

"What war?" Steve asked Loki, when the silence had grown intolerable. He'd always been comfortable with silence, but in Asgard's open plains, accompanied only by the North wind, he found it was unsettling.

"I don't know," Loki admitted with troubled eyes. Though he was still grieving, he'd recognized that there was a time and a place for it, and if war was impending, as Bruce had said it was, Loki's grief for his mother could wait.

They passed through the dying forest of Yggdrasil and over the open plains of Asgard. They passed through the open, golden fields of flax and grass until they came across the ancient fields of an apple orchard. Most of the trees had died, save one—an old, gnarled thing that stood in the middle of the orchard.

There was nothing remarkable about it, as far as trees went. Decaying fruit lay about on the overgrown grass, and the apples still on the tree looked entirely unappetizing, rotting where they grew.

"Oh boy," Tony quipped, but his tone was brittle, "A rotting tree. That's nothing new. Everything here seems to be dying."

"That's Idunn's tree," Loki said with gravity, and although Tony gave him a blank look, recognition dawned on Natasha's face.

"The tree of youth," she murmured, picking up a fruit from the ground.

"This tree feeds off Yggdrasil, and as it sickens, so does this, and so does everyone who consumes its fruit," Bruce explained, plucking a putrid apple from the tree.

"A rotting apple tree, so what?" Tony knelt down and poked at one of the rotting fruit. The flies that buzzed around it scattered.

"It is an ambrosia that keeps the gods immortal," Loki explained, studying one of the moldering fruit even as it hung from its branches, "But it is Idunn's apples that keep them young."

"Ohhhhhh," Tony nodded knowingly before adding, "I don't get it."

"The elixir keeps the gods immortal," Natasha said, "but they must eat these apples to stay young."

"Or they grow old," Clint guessed, poking at the fruit.

"Exactly," Bruce said, plucking a putrid apple from the tree. "This tree finds life in the roots of Yggdrasil, and as it sickened, so did this apple tree."

"But the gods ate from it anyway, and didn't know," Tony came up beside Bruce.

"Right," the scientist nodded.

"Idunn is…" Clint searched his memory.

"Bragi's wife," Loki noted, and he looked at Steve. "In my mother's chambers—" he began, before stopping to compose himself. "The god with the harp."

"Oh," Steve said looking at the dying tree. "Oh," he repeated, when he realized what it meant. It made sense that Bragi had eaten from the tree regularly, and that Frigga had done the same. She was renowned for her beauty in the Sagas, but for a woman—even a goddess—thousands of years old, staying young and beautiful meant paying a price.

"The hubris of the gods," Natasha said apropos of nothing as she plucked a rotting apple from its stem.

"Yes," Bruce said.

"Nobody did this then," Clint said. "Nobody poisoned the Aesir." He squished an apple under his foot, and worms crawled out, inching back into the earth.

Bruce looked at Steve, and the captain knew what the scientist was going to say.

"You did this," he said, but his words weren't accusatory. "The Fates held the world together, and when you threw their Sagas into disarray, they banished themselves."

"That's impossible," Loki cut in. "The Fates are as immortal as time. Even after we are gone, they exist."

"They're not dead," Bruce explained. "They've just left _this _universe."

"What do you mean, _this_ universe," Loki echoed, obviously agitated. "They belong here."

"As if this is the only set of worlds that exists in the universe, and as if this universe singular," Banner said gently. "When Steve created an alternate universe to the one they'd made, they found themselves redundant, and moved on."

The world slid sideways, and Steve felt as though he were going to be sick. He leaned over, his hands on his knees, his stomach churning. He felt a steadying hand on his back: recognized his compatriot by her feet. Natasha rubbed even circles on his back.

He'd only done the best he could, but he'd never meant to be the architect of the end of the world. He wondered, furtively, where Jesus was. If the Norse gods were so prevalent, where was _his_ god, when he needed him most?

He heard Tony ask remotely, "What's going on? Did _Steve_ eat the apples? I'm pretty sure he didn't though, right? We would've seen it. _I_ would've seen it. I'm sober!" Tony declared definitively.

The ground shuddered beneath them and Clint asked, "Asgard has earthquakes?"

"That's Nidhogg," Bruce said, and Loki looked at him sharply. "He eats the roots of the World Tree, and without the Fates, nothing stops him. The Old Ones are coming."

"Hold on two seconds," Tony said sharply. "Who are the 'Old Ones'?"

"Chaos," Bruce said with finality. "The Fates kept order, and without them, he comes."

And Steve was sick.

When he was done throwing up his meager dinner, he sank to his knees.

"I did this," he said. "I've killed your people," he addressed Loki. "Your people, and everyone on Earth."

"I'm sure it's not as bad as all that," Tony said, but he didn't sound certain.

"How do we fight Chaos?" Natasha asked Bruce. She was kneeling beside Steve, her hand still on his back. When he felt well enough to stand, she helped him to his feet.

And Bruce, for all his multi-world experiences and knowledge gave Natasha the saddest look.

"We can't," Bruce said, and the Hulk moaned behind him. "The World Serpent has come untethered."

"What, exactly, does that mean?" Clint asked when Bruce and Loki shared a heavy look, and neither was forthcoming.

"It means that The End has begun," Loki intoned, and Bruce nodded.

"The end _The End_ like, 'sayonara, suckers, nice knowing you'?" Tony asked. When Bruce nodded, he said, "Now I think _I'm_ going to be sick."

"But we can stop it," Natasha said firmly. "In the Sagas, Thor fought the World Serpent and won." She bent to grab one of the fallen apples. Holding it gingerly, its juices ran down her hand and she dropped it, quickly rubbing her palm on her pants.

"But Thor is as sick as the rest of them," Clint argued. "There's no one to stand up to Chaos."

"That's not true," Steve said. "This my fault, I'll fight." It was a suicide mission if there ever was one, and he knew he was probably going to die, but if he'd been the one to cause all this mayhem, maybe his death would restore things back to the natural order.

Loki turned from where he was regarding the dying apple tree.

"Perhaps it is your fault, as Banner has said. But you will not stand on the field alone. I will fight with you."

"I don't expect you to," he protested.

"Then you don't know a lot about us," Clint said. "If we followed you into Niflheim, we'll follow you into war. You can't expect us to stand idly by."

"We need to inform Fury of what's coming," Natasha added. "He can prepare earth's forces—they'll need them. We'll take the field here. Loki—we're going to need all the knowledge you have about what the Sagas said about the final days. Bruce, you too."

"Of course," the scientist nodded grimly.

"There's a war room in Odin's hall," Loki said. "It is filled with the documents written by the sooth-sayers that told him of the things the Fates did not. He has his maps there, and it may provide us with some knowledge."

"Let's get back to the Hall of Asgard then," Steve said. He turned to Tony. "You haven't said anything. Nobody will judge you if you decide to head back now. We can get you back to Pepper."

"Oh, I'll go to war," Tony straightened his shoulders. "But I need a drink first."

"Well," Loki said with a wan smile, "I have the answer for that, if nothing else."

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Steve had noticed the great armoire in Loki's chambers before, but he'd thought nothing of it beyond the size of the thing. It was obviously Dwarven, and an intricate scene was carved onto the doors. Steve had accepted that in a people as ancient as the Aesir, there were a thousand tales to tell, and they seemed inclined to tell them on any available surface they had.

But when Loki unlocked the heavy wooden doors with an iron key, it wasn't finely woven clothes or rare treasures locked away inside, but a crowded liquor cabinet

"Oooooh," Tony whistled, pulling a bottle from a shelf. "Holy shit. Is this _the _Chateau Lafite Rothschild? It has to be," he said, rotating the black bottle. "1787. Thomas Jefferson's initials, check it out," he held the bottle up before turning to Loki. "I thought Forbes bought it back in '85."

"He certainly thought he did," Loki agreed with a quirk of his lip. "I won this bottle in a game and did not pick it up until recently."

"A game?" Natasha asked. "With whom?"

"With Thomas Jefferson, of course," Loki said dryly.

"You've been to Earth before?" Clint squinted at the bottles before giving Loki a look of disbelief.

Loki rolled his eyes in response and Clint said, "I shouldn't have asked."

"And a bottle of the 1926 Macallan Fine and Rare Collection" Tony pulled another bottle off the shelf, handling it as though it were gold.

"Oh, bozhe," Natasha drew a gold bottle with "Russo-Baltique" stamped on the label. "How do you afford this?"

"Please," Loki said, taking the bottle from her hand and placing it back on the shelf. "You obviously know nothing about my reputation if you assume I would pay for this."

"This is _history_, right here," Tony said with more enthusiasm than he'd had facing the World Tree or the resplendent Hall of Asgard, or anything else, Steve reflected. "This is the 1811 Chateau d'Yquem," he said, pulling an old, dusty bottle off the shelf with a worn label. When the team looked at him blankly, he snipped, "Do you people know nothing? Christian Vanneque bought this for $117,000. It's claimed to be one of the greatest wines in the history of Bordeaux, from one of the most supreme vintages ever produces. He's supposed to open it in 2017 to celebrate his 50-year-long career."

Tony regarded the bottle.

"If we make it to then, he won't even have the right bottle." He turned to Loki. "You were here," he motioned his hand to about his knee, indicating his appreciation of the god. "But now you're about here," he raised his hand to eye level.

Loki plucked the bottle from Tony, obviously amused.

"If you are correct and we are not to make it to your 2017, then it would be remiss on our part for us not to enjoy the vintage." The god grabbed a corkscrew from the cabinet, and Tony sucked in a breath.

"You wouldn't," he whispered.

Loki stuck the wine key into the cork and pulled it free. Handling the crystal glasses, he poured a glass for each of them, emptying the bottle.

Natasha took the proffered glass hesitantly, sniffing the contents delicately.

"Shouldn't it just be vinegar at this point?"

"It doesn't matter," Tony declared airily, "It's an _experience,_" he declared, taking a sip. When he was done, his face was marked in surprise. "It hasn't soured."

"Of course not," Loki said, sounding affronted. "I got these the day they were bottled and have "sold" them over the years to keep myself amused," he said, pulling out a bottle of Billionaire Vodka.

"But why?" Clint asked, sipping the wine delicately. "You can't get drunk off this stuff, can you?"

"Because I like it," Loki said, as if it was the only answer needed, and Steve supposed it was.

"For us," Loki turned to Steve. "I have one of Asgard's rarest vintages," he said, pulling a bottle of mead from the shelf. He poured two glasses, and offered one to Steve. He eyes the amber drink distrustfully.

"When was this bottled?" He asked, none to anxious to either thousand-year old mead, or one poisoned.

"The day Odin All-father brought me back from Jotunheim," Loki said, holding up his glass.

"To war," he toasted.

"I'll never toast to that," Steve said. "One war was enough; I'm not eager for another."

"Then, _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori._"

"You can't end it there," Bruce said. "_Sed dulcius pro patria vivere, et dulcissimum pro patria bibere. Ergo, bibamus pro salute patriae."_

"There's a lot of words I don't recognized said in quick order," Tony griped, the glass held carefully in his hand as he dragged a chair over to the balcony.

"Come on," he said. "Let's sit under the stars and get drunk."

As the pulled the chairs over, each settling in with their respective glass, Bruce translated his statement.

"'It is sweet and dignified to die for the homeland, but it is sweeter to live for the homeland, and the sweetest to drink for it. Therefore, let us drink to the health of the homeland.' It's an old toast from the 19th century, but I find it fitting. There's a poem by the same name, too, by Wilfred Owen. Have you read it?" He asked Loki, who shook his head.

"I have," Steve volunteered, staring down into his glass and refusing to expound when his team looked at him expectedly.

"I'll drink to that," Clint shrugged and clinked his glass against Bruce's, and for the first time, there was a hint of the scientist they'd known. The Hulk settled heavily against the bannister, having found no chair large enough to hold him.

"What's up with him, anyway?" Tony asked, motioning to the beast. "I thought you were the same?"

"We are," Bruce said, regarding the creature fondly. "In Niflheim, as you know, he became his own being. I expect that when we return to Midgard, he will be part of me again. But I prefer him like this. He's a man of simple words, but he is wise."

"You didn't find a way to fix everything then," Clint asked, sipping from his crystal goblet. Asgard was illuminated in the silver light of a full moon, and despite everything, it was beautiful.

"I did," Bruce said. "We all have a dark part of our soul that we keep hidden. I just have the honor of meeting my other half. He isn't the monster I thought he was. That's more important, I think, than trying to do away with him entirely."

"That got deep pretty quickly," Clint mused.

"When," Tony interrupted with a flourishing hand, "Do we go to war? Not right now, right? I'm rather enjoying this vintage. Good call, Loki."

Steve found he wasn't as flippant about the subject matter as the billionaire, and he stared into the contents of his glass when Loki gave a blithe answer.

The team was reluctant to dwell on anything too life affirming, and Steve listened without adding to the conversation. Twirling his glass in his hand, he realized his world-view couldn't jive with everything happening around him.

He'd always acted in a way he thought honorable right, and in doing so, he'd caused the sickness of an entire people—and maybe the death of an entire world.

The stars were strange, despite the number of times he'd been here, but he prayed to God all the same. He thought it unfair, that the beliefs of a people three thousand years before him, had been right in their concepts of life and death, and life-after-death, and he was not. He'd gone to church, and he paid his tithes, and he'd always tried to live his life as well as he could.

He _knew_ he wasn't wrong—he remembered the golden shores of Jordan clearly now, but he couldn't understand why God wasn't stepping in to stop the apocalypse, if Loki was right—and he had no reason to believe he wasn't.

How could he have done so much wrong, by only trying to do right?

Long after Tony and Clint ascertained what they could from Bruce, and the trio had passed out from a combination of exhaustion and inebriation, Natasha, the Hulk, and Loki were still awake.

Steve was aware enough that Natasha and Loki were engaged on some conversation related to Ragnarök, and the green monster listened intently, peppering the dialogue with occasional bits of wisdom, while simply said, were remarkably perceptive.

When the full moon was low in the sky, and the Hulk had bedded down, Natasha addressed Steve gently.

"You haven't spoken all evening."

"How could I? This is my fault," he said with a clumsy sweep of his hand. He'd imbibed enough to feel relaxed, knowing that the alcohol that ran through his veins affirmed his right to life, and that it somehow made it worse.

"Steve," the Black Widow leaned forward inelegantly, "you are _only_ human. Nobody can accuse you for not doing what you thought was right."

"I've killed everyone," he whispered.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," Loki said, well into his cups, "is it not?"

"I don't understand," Steve shifted in the chair, finding it suddenly uncomfortable. "I did everything I thought was right! I never meant to change the world: I only meant to save you," he said, looking at Loki. "Why did I fail?"

"Knowing what you know now," Natasha said, "Would you change anything you've done? Would you have crossed over, leaving Loki to his fate?"

"No," Steve said resolutely. "I couldn't have. I wouldn't have belonged there. Regardless of whether or not everyone accepted me, I would not have belonged. How could I?"

"Then," Natasha said, leaning back in her chair, "there is nothing to be done. The Fates found the change insurmountable. I don't believe in a lot of things, Cap—and certainly not a God—sorry, Loki, not even you—but I believe that you will always do what you think is right. We'll win this, or we'll die trying, and I think that's all anybody can ask of us."

Steve twirled the glass in his hands, regarding the amber liquid inside.

When he awoke—and when had he passed out? Steve wondered blurrily, the sun was low on the horizon, blanketed in ice clouds. Rubbing his eyes, he chanced a glance at his bonded. Loki looked back, his green eyes cool, before looking out at the horizon.

While Steve had always taken winter for granted, he was only beginning to appreciate how unsettling Loki found it.

The rest of the team was still fast asleep, and Natasha was snoring with every breath, a fact Steve thought best to keep to himself. He thought it well to wake her as soon as Clint showed signs of stirrings. He had little reason to believe it they'd make it through the coming war, and him least of all, but he hoped that she'd finally return Clint's open love in a manner that was more than strictly platonic.

"You're awake," the god said.

"I didn't know I'd fallen asleep," he admitted as he stretched. His muscles complained from the movement, but he didn't know what respite to offer them.

"Hm," Loki murmured.

Steve was glad the rest of the team was still asleep. He twisted in his chair so he could looke at his bonded without a stiff neck. He felt rejuvenated—a result, he knew, of the mead—but his head ached all the same.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?" Loki glanced over with hooded eyes.

_I stole your mother, and I'm sorry_, Steve wanted to say. _I took away your security_, he'd add. "For everything," he said.

Loki waved his apology away.

"It's as Hel said. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees."

"Maybe," Steve agreed, "But not this way."

"Then what way, Steve Rogers?" Loki shifted in his chair so he could look at the human. "You admitted last night, you'd have not done anything different. I miss my mother, but I am too selfish to admit I would willingly succumb to the Fates. You're too wise and too clever—you know my mother planned all of this. If it was not the written Sagas, it was my mother's plan. Your sense of righteousness made you weak to her trap."

"So," he sighed. "What now?"

"Now," Loki said, setting the glass he held on the marble bannister, "We fight, and we hope to win."

"And what if we don't?" Steve asked.

In the war, there'd been no question: they would either win, or the world was lost to Hitler and his kind. The stakes now were higher, but he was bereft of the knowledge that his cause was the righteous one.

"Then all of the worlds are forfeit, as they were always meant to be, and nothing is changed."

"Is that it, then?" He implored. "It's all or nothing? And what happens if we succeed, what happens then?"

"I do not know, for the Fates never wrote of it, and I am as much in the dark as you. Does it frighten you?"

"Doesn't it scare _you_?"

"Why should it? I'm a far sight better than I was ever meant to be." Loki asked rhetorically as he stood and leaned against the marble bannister. "Come, you are King of Asgard, and such doubts do not suit you."

Steve stood, leaning against the railing beside Loki, comforted by the heat of another living being.

"I don't know how to be king," he said. "And besides, I'm king of a dead realm, of my own doing."

"I was king for a day," Loki admitted after a pause. "I thought it was my right, as Odin's son. It did not sit well with me that I was third in line, and that he considered my strengths the right of women, besides."

"I never knew that."

"It was a curse," Loki glanced over. "I found out I was adopted, and that Odin had only taken me in out of pity. I had thought to gain the respect of my people, but instead I was faced with their derision.

"Despite Frigga's machinations, my father saw the same thing in you that he knew existed in my brothers—strength tempered with wisdom: else he would not have named you heir at all. Thor has the former in droves, and was only recently beginning to realize the latter—and that is thanks only to his time on Midgard and meeting you and yours."

"There was a time when you were vocal in your hatred for your family," Steve mused, ignoring Loki's attenuation to Thor in the past tense.

"Yes," Loki agreed. "Such a time existed. And yet, I know the pain your father caused your family. If he were here now, would you refuse his guidance and wisdom?"

"No," Steve admitted. "Never. I miss him every day."

"As I thought," Loki nodded, regarding the captain with his deep green eyes. "Those who seek power to not deserve it. The fight with Jörmungandr will be terrible, but for the first time in the history of people, we have a chance to succeed. It is slight, but it exists, and that is more than we had ever asked for."

"And if we aren't?" Steve pressed. "Successful, I mean."

"Then we shall be dead, and it will not matter."

0o0o0o0o0o

It was a sorry team that Steve rallied around Odin's war table.

Tony and Bruce's eyes were bloodshot, and Natasha and Clint, slightly younger and better suited for alcohol abuse, wore dark circles beneath their eyes. Whatever sleep they'd earned from a night of drinking was not rejuvenating,

But Steve couldn't worry about it.

"Tony, I need you to get JARVIS to monitor Earth's weather and plate tectonics and report it back to us. According to the legends, Jörmungandr will cause disrupt on earth before he comes here."

Stark nodded, blinking several times through bleary eyes.

"I don't know about the connection here on Asgard, but with some adjustments, I can make it work," he said. "Just some interstellar relaying and all that. Normal time lag will create some trouble but we can work around that. I'm not much use with tree trunks and branches, but I'll make use of the Einstein-Rosen bridge, such as it is."

"There will be distortion. What kind of waves are you planning on utilizing?" Bruce asked.

The two quickly dissolved into scientific discussion that passed over the heads of the other present. Natasha turned to Steve.

"What's the battle plan, Cap?"

"I need Bruce and Tony to set up the relay first. SHIELD needs to know what's coming down the pipes. It looks like everybody needs a little R&R, so use this day to recuperate. We'll reconvene here tomorrow at 0800. Any questions?" he paused, and when there were none, nodded. "Okay, break."

After a few hours of negotiating pieces over Odin's sand table, the captain wandered to the All-father's throne room. He'd taken care not to visit it—had left the heavy crown unadorned since the day of his coronation on the gilded chair.

He heard the steps behind him. He'd grown familiar enough with the rhythm of Loki's gait to know when his bonded had grown close, and he didn't turn around.

"My country had a revolution to keep one man from ruling absolutely," he said, staring down at the ring of gold.

"You are not in your country, and my land knows nothing else."

"I haven't been there in a long time," Steve said, turning, and feeling very homesick.

"In Asgard, seventy years is insignificant: merely the blink of an eye."

"On Earth, it is a life time," he argued. "Everything changed, and I no longer fit."

"For all your wisdom, you are too mawkish by half. The movies and trending culture may have changed, but little besides. The young still rebel, and the elder still talk about 'the old days', and everyone is worried about the future."

"How long were you Earth really?" Steve asked, finding the god too knowledgeable by half. He often suspected that Loki knew more about his own people than he did, and it was a sorry thing.

"Enough," Loki said, crossing the throne room to pick up the crown. "I saw Rome fall and its libraries burn."

"Are you really a god?" Steve asked, refusing to take the proffered crown. "I was raised to believe in one God, greater than the other. I believed—" he trailed off, feeling slightly lost.

"My people visited yours when you were still in your formation. When the dark belonged to monsters and the ways of the earth were subject to supernatural influence. Perhaps we took advantage of them. It was many years ago, and we relished the thought of being worshipped.

"But there are things in all these worlds that even now, after thousands of years, I cannot explain. I have never seen your God, Steve, but I have never had cause not to believe He might exist. I do not know the answer to your question," Loki said honestly, clutching the crown to his chest.

"I saw my friends," Steve said, crossing to Loki's side. He looked down at the crown. "They waited for me. So I can't be wrong, I _can't_, but—"

"The only friend I saw was you," Loki looked into Steve's eyes, and the captain looked away.

"Everyone deserves a second chance," he said, and it sounded tired even in as he said it.

"Perhaps," the Trickster said, shoving the crown into Steve's hands, forcing him to take it. "But that is not the reason why you came back for me."

Clutching his hands around the gold circlet, he looked up at Loki.

"What do you want me to say?"

"If you cannot be honest with yourself, then how you can be honest about anything else? You say you praise the truth, and while it is true that you never left a man behind—it is not the only reason you came back."

Steve chewed his cheek. He'd come back because, despite all of Loki's failings, he was the only living being in all the worlds that actually understood him. They were kindred spirits, despite their difference in age and culture.

For all of Tony's light-hearted quips, and all of Natasha and Bruce's wisdom, Loki was the only one that had seen the darkest parts of Steve's soul and had accepted him anyway. He tempered Steve's own optimism with reality, and he was just as broken.

"Because you are my friend," Steve finally admitted. "And I don't have a lot of those."

It seemed to be what Loki needed to hear, but Steve didn't know why.

"We need to discuss what may transpire, as Ragnarök comes," the god said, changing tracks. "Although the timeline has been adjusted, I do not believe the major events will be considerably shifted. We can assume to expect these, and address them accordingly so that the unexpected things can be handled appropriately."

"You're my second-hand," the captain said. "You know the enemies' tactics better than me, and your information is invaluable."

"I know," the god smirked. "There was a time when I looked forward to these days. Planned for them, even. Now, my greatest desire is to avert them. I will aid you in every way I know how."

"Why did you give this to me?" Steve asked, holding up the crown.

Loki shrugged. "Because it suits you, and I can think of no better to wear it."

"I'm not putting it on. I'm not a king."

"You may find the power it gives you intoxicating as I did, or you made find it heavy, as my father did. But you may find that it gives you confidence when you have none. The crown is not for you, Steve Rogers, but for the people you have sworn to protect. It is not much different from the captain bars on your collar. It serves to remind you of what you need to do."

Steve considered the crown, holding it carefully between his hands.

"You can't really expect me to go into battle with this. I'll lose it the moment I do anything."

"I think you will find it is not as insecure as you think."

Raising an eyebrow, Steve set the circlet on the crown of his head. He remembered the weight well, but when he turned his head rapidly to test its staying power, he found that, at least in this capacity, Loki was correct: the crown did not budge.

"It doesn't feel right," he complained, moving to take it off. Loki reached out and stayed his hand.

"It does not matter. You are the King of Asgard. The title means something. Perhaps not to your people, but to those we fight, it will. They are not warring with Captain Steve Rogers of the US Army and leader of the Avengers, but with the King of Asgard. This should not be taken lightly."

"Next you'll be asking me to wield Mjilnor," he frowned.

"Never," Loki replied. "It is folly to ask you to switch up the weapon your familiar with for my brother's and besides, it does not suit you. This does."

When they entered the war room, Steve found the team was already there. Tony had managed to scrounge up some shot glasses that he'd place across the map as pieces. He'd drawn a snake with a frowny face to mark Jormungandr's position around the earth. The other pieces, Steve thought, was likely taken from Bruce's knowledge, and his heart sunk when he saw a comical looking ghost on the bow of a tiny ship.

They looked up at their arrival, and Tony's brows shot to his hairline when he saw the crown but Natasha said, "Looking official, Cap."

"Are we supposed to, you know, bow?" Clint asked.

"Don't be ridiculous," Steve said, walking over to the war table with more confidence than he felt. Observing where the shot-glass pieces were sat, he looked up at Bruce. "Is this where everyone's at, to the best of your knowledge?"

"Yes," the scientist said. "Everyone seems to know Chaos is coming, and they've started rallying forces accordingly."

Steve opened his mouth to talk when his vision doubled and a splitting headache spiked through his head. He gripped the table just to stay up, but it wasn't the table he saw, but an army of ghosts packed onto tall ships being unmoored by the thrashing of the world serpent.

When he blinked, the image was gone but the headache remained.

"What," Tony intoned, "the hell was that?"

Rubbing his temple, he winced.

"I don't know, but it looks like Ragnarok has started. The dead are preparing to set sail across Niflheim's river on tall ships carved from the bones of ancient monsters."

"Fucking fantastic."

"So what now?" Bruce asked, looking down at the sand table. Despite all his travels, he was a man of knowledge and not strategy, and he looked back up at Steve expectedly.

And suddenly, the captain knew what Loki had meant. The crown was heavy indeed, and it was exactly the same as any other title he'd ever carried, whether it was the rank of captain for the Howling Commandos, or Team Leader for the Avengers.

"Ragnarök was meant to be a process," he said. "Three years without summer before the cock crowed, heralding the end. At that time, the World Serpent would writhe, unmooring two ships carrying the dead, and Loki from his binds.

"The Aesir were meant to be alive. They would fight the ships of the dead, and the coming Frost Giants. Loki would battle Heimdall, and Odin was to be killed by the Serpent, and Thor would avenge his death. But the Fates are gone, and we don't have the luxury of three years to prepare for war. It bears down on us now."

"I'm confused," Clint said, leaning on the table. "Where is the war meant to be fought? Last I checked, there were no oceans here, so where are the dead sailing to?"

"On the shores of the Northern countries," Loki supplied. Crossing over to the heavy shelves occupied by books and scrolls, he plucked a long parchment from the shelf and unrolled it. It was an ancient map of the Norse countries, but though the paper was yellow with age, the shorelines were accurate enough. He pointed to the northernmost point of Greenland. "They land here," he said, moving the shot glass to position.

"Well, ship-sinking mines I have in score," Tony said lightly, pushing a few pieces of gold meant to represent the defense of the country.

"I might be wrong," Natasha interrupted, "but I thought the war was meant to be fought in Asgard. The Sagas only ever mentioned the gods at play: the only significance humans carried were the two that survived."

"That is because the war was to be fought on Midgard, and it was not expected for any to survive beyond the two that hid in the trunk of Yggdrasil."

"But Yggdrasil is dying—" the Black Widow began.

"—so if we fail, none will survive," Loki finished.

"Holy shit," Tony leaned against the table heavily. "That's serious business."

Loki nodded.

"So what's the plan of attack?" Bruce pressed.

Steve cleared his throat. "Clint, you and Natasha will be responsible for fighting the dead if they make it through Tony's mines." He shifted to Tony, "After you sink those boats, you're to come back and help Bruce and Loki fight the Frost Giants."

"And what about you?" Nat asked.

"I'll wait for the Serpent. If I can fight, and win, the war is won. I just need you to keep everybody off my back for as long as possible."

"How long does it take for the dead to sail from Niflheim?" Tony asked, pushing the shot glass with the cartoon ghost around across Earth's oceans.

"We have a few days," Loki offered. "Maybe weeks."

"Let's work off days," Steve said.

"I'll talk to Pepper and Fury; we'll get the mines set up in time. You want any booby-traps on the shore? We need a defense in depth if we're to win this." Any amusement was gone from Tony's face, and he regarded the map seriously.

"We'll want close air support, if Fury can get it. Besides that, I want to keep the land mines to a minimum. We don't know what effect, if any, our weapons will have on the invading forces. I don't want to harm our forces by accident."

"So, you really mean to stand the Avengers against all of Ragnarök?" The billionaire asked, looking up.

"We can use whatever forces Fury will rally, but—and correct me if I'm wrong, Loki—the whole battle depends on the defeat of Jörmungandr."

"You are correct," Loki said, pushing the shot glass of the World Serpent forward to the shore, where a tiny green plastic army man stood in defiance, and Steve wondered where Tony had gotten the piece.

He'd managed to find an action figure made in the likeness of Ironman to represent himself.

"Well then, why don't we just gang up on him?" Clint asked.

"Because this is meant to be a personal battle," Loki explained, and he sounded tired. "Many things have changed, but not this."

"How can you be sure?" The ranger pressed. "It doesn't seem fair, to let Steve go up against a giant worm by himself."

"Steve changed many things, but he could not change this," Loki said, pushing the plastic soldier and the shot glass so that they met on the map.

"It's okay," Steve said before Clint could push the subject. "I'll wait for the Serpent. In the mean time—Bruce, I need you and Tony monitoring the tectonic plates for any unusual movement. The rest of you, find out what you can about what the Fates originally said would happen."

"Sounds easy, when you say it like that," Clint offered with a weak smile.

"War always does," Steve replied wearily.

Chapter End

A/n

Jörmungandr is the World Serpent. In Norse Mythology, the serpent surrounds the earth and grabs it tail. When he lets go, the world will end. According to the mythology, Thor and Jörmungandr would fight when the serpent came out of the ocean and poisons the sky.

However, the motif of chaoskampf (German for "Struggle Against Chaos") (Wikipedia) goes back much farther and is ubiquitous in almost all creation myths where the storm god defeats a sea serpent/dragon (Where chaos takes the form of primordial waters/darkness) and order overcomes chaos. In Norse Mythology, this takes the form of Thor and Jörmungandr.

The Chateau Lafite 1787 was sold at auction for $160,000 in 1985 to Christopher Forbes. I imagine it wouldn't't take too much slight of hand for Loki to have acquired it.

"Oh bozche" is Russian for "Oh my God". The Russo-Baltique bottle of vodka is the most expensive in the world, cashing in at a cool 1.4 American million. It is a collaboration with the a Russian car company and the royalty (specifically Princess Regina Abdurazakova) of Kazakhstan.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" translates to "It is sweet and dignified to die for your country" written by Horace in his poem, _Odes._ Bruce's full toast is an humorous elaboration on the original statement, popular in the 19th century. But it was World War I's poet, Wilfred Owen who made the line famous by his poem, _Dulce Et Decorum Est_ wherein he recounted the effects of chlorine gas on a poor soldier who was unable to don his gas mask in time. You can find it here: .

But the full poem reads:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,  
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,  
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs  
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.  
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots  
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;  
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots  
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,  
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;  
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling  
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-  
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light  
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,  
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace  
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,  
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,  
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;  
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood  
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,  
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud  
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-  
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest  
To children ardent for some desperate glory,  
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est  
Pro patria mori.


	8. Where's the Glory

Chapter 8 Where's the Glory in Making Mother's Weep?

_Tears are shed, a shame_

_I should have known _

_The crown weighs heavy_

_Heavy as I sit back in my throne_

_I say hey, it wasn't me_

_I'm just a pawn_

_But the devil's not into details_

_Where have all the heroes gone?_

_The victor earns the title "The Great"_

_All the mysteries get unlearned_

_All the history just becomes a string of dates_

Hey, I Don't Know - Kongos

Unable to sleep, Bruce walked aimlessly through the Hall of Asgard. The ghosts of the Aesir dogged his steps, but whenever he turned to address them, they'd scatter; their murmurs were incoherent, but Bruce could sense the longing and lost conveyed in their sighs and moans, and his heart hurt.

He expected the throne room to be empty, and was surprised to find a lonely figure on the steps that lead to the throne. His shoulders were curled, and the crown upon his head looked exceedingly heavy. He looked up as Bruce and the Hulk approached.

"May I?" The scientist asked, motioning to the empty steps next to his captain.

"Be my guest." Steve replied dully.

Bruce settled beside him, but the Hulk moved around the room restlessly, soulful brown eyes gazing at each tapestry in turn.

They watched him in silence before Bruce said, "You carry a heavy burden. I won't bother you with small talk."

"I haven't seen you in almost a year," the captain returned mildly. "Your presence is hardly unwanted: my friends are always welcome."

"It's funny, isn't it?" Bruce looked out across the massive throne room. "The things that we become. Who would've imagined that a kid from Brooklyn would one day be King of Asgard?"

"Not me," Steve reached for the crown. Pulling it off his head, he held the circlet free, studying the metal work. "Just one of these gems would've been enough to feed my mother and me during the Depression," he mused. "Two years ago, if you'd asked me if I believed in any of this..." he trailed off.

"I expect there are a lot of things that are hard for you to believe. We landed in on the moon and put a TV and a computer in every household among a litany of other achievements. To think, the word 'computer' was completely foreign to you. We engage in conflicts even now, despite the best efforts of your generation."

"We once believed that World War I was the war to end all wars," Steve snorted.

"Robert E. Lee said, 'It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.'"

Steve let out a laugh, but there was no humor in it.

"I guess I should be comforted that even an alien race of gods go to war, so what hope do we have?"

"Cynicism doesn't suit you," Bruce chided his captain lightly. Steve looked askance at the scientist and he forced a smile. Bruce expected it was hard to always be Dudley Do-Right, to rally the forces and do everything they expected him to do with unwavering commitment. Steve played the part because the team expected it of him, no matter how wearying it was.

"But what about you?" Steve asked. "You haven't talked about your journey at all. Did you find out everything you wanted to?"

"Enough. But I learned something that may be of particular interest to our cause."

Steve looked at Bruce in interest. The coming conflict was a heavy weight; for all their super human powers and abilities, it was still just the team against the legions of Chaos.

Clutching the crown in his hands to belay his excitement, because, if there was anyone that could reveal the critical vulnerabilities of their enemies, it was the man who had just traveled the World Tree.

"Yeah?"

"Hel dotes on you," Bruce said, and Steve rolled his eyes.

"Loki said the same thing. I don't know where it came from. I only vaguely remember meeting her when she developed the crush, and I was a skull in Loki's hands at the time." He knew how absurd the statement sounded, and he snorted even as he said it.

"You also know she stole one of the bones from your finger," Bruce nodded towards the pinky on Steve's right hand. He automatically reached for the finger, rubbing the bones beneath it, if only to confirm that they were all there. He knew, abstractly, that the skeletal creature he'd been in Niflheim was not his actual body but a representation of his soul, and every thing he lost—every bit of flesh and muscle—was the very real loss of himself.

"She told me," Steve said, once still rubbing his hand absently. He remembered the warmth of the memory that had come with the bone, but not the content.

"What you do not know is that she has rubbed that bone smooth, living that day of your life over and over. You do not remember, but it was an afternoon spent fishing on a lake with your father. Your mom had the servants pack a lunch, and when you were done fishing—you'd caught a sunfish that your dad helped you release—you ate beneath the boughs of an old willow tree. And when the sun was close to setting, you chased after the fireflies."

Steve listened, but the story meant nothing to him.

"Why are you telling me this?" He asked, when Bruce was through.

"Because it was the greatest happiness Hel had experienced in an age, and she found, for the first time in an age, that she could be moved to tears."

"But why did she cry?" He pressed.

"Because she had seen all your memories, when you were in her realm, and she knew the death of the little boy that spent a day on the lake with his father."

"But I'm not dead. Not anymore,"

"_You_ may not be dead," Bruce agreed, "but that little boy died the day his father did. We have all died a thousand deaths to become the people we are today. They were not our physical deaths, but you can't tell me that you are that little boy of five embraced in the love of your parents anymore."

"No," Steve admitted, staring down at the crown. "I guess not." He looked back up. "But what does this have to do with the battle?"

"Hel's dead are meant to ride against us, but I believe that if you were to go to her and ask for her to stay their ship from ever setting sail, she would. After all, you ensured her freedom, and that means the choice to do what she sees fit."

"Will you come with me?"

"I'm sorry—I can't. This is a journey meant to be made alone."

Steve stood. "I guess you'd know something about that. I think everyone has bedded down for the night, so I won't bother waking them. Cover for me if I'm not back by morning?"

"Of course," Bruce said nodding. He made no attempts to delay Steve, and the captain was thankful for it.

"And Bruce?" Steve said, pausing at the archway of the throne room. "Welcome back. I missed you."

Bruce smiled back. "I missed you all, too."

0o0o0o0o0o

Steve was expecting misery when he crossed into Niflheim, and he wasn't wrong. But it was not the anticipated pain and loss, but a wash of despair and longing that rolled over him. Clenching his teeth, he soldiered down the boney path and to Eljudnir. The giants guarding the bridge let him pass without comment, and he ignored the dynamic tapestries, his eyes focused on the closed doors to the throne room.

When he came up against the black wood, he hesitated before steeling himself and knocking as heavily as he could.

The door swung open weakly, and Steve entered the hall carefully. There was no legion of dead that populated the room, and Hel set alone in an old Queen Anne chair by one of the tall windows. She motioned to an empty rocking chair set across for her.

"Come," she said. Steve came to rest before the rocking chair, and was ready to settle into it before his eyes skipped over the intricate carvings on the back.

He sank into the seat, finding his knees had gone weak. "This is my father's chair," he said hollowly.

"And I am in your mother's. Do you not recognize it?"

And Steve did—it was exactly as he remembered it. The upholstery should have been faded, but it wasn't, and the smooth mahogany had not been worn bare. His mother had sat in it at night before the fireplace in the winter; Steve curled up at her legs.

"How?" He whispered.

"Oh, dear captain, you underestimate me. I expect that by now, your wayward teammate has returned home and told you of my affection for you."

Steve tried rocking in the chair. There was the slight hitch just as the chair moved forward that he remembered well. He curled his hands over the arms, remembered when his father had done the same. He looked out across the dreary, ruddy land. It was a far cry from the busy streets of Brooklyn, but for the first time in a long time, he felt like he was home. He'd finally connected with his childhood, and warmth flooded his soul.

"I don't meant to lead you on," Steve said uneasily, "but I'm afraid your feelings are unrequited."

Hel laughed a sickly laugh. "Your heart is worn bare and thin. Do not be mistaken; I am in love with the _idea_ of you. Not _you._"

Steve sighed. "Sometimes, I think you're not the only one."

Hel's face softened, and she looked away. "Even if your feelings were returned, it could not work. I have set my heart on the wrong love before, and I paid sorely for it. I am as you: too old and too bitter to love as I once did."

And while Steve had only spent moments in Hel's presence before, he knew a kindred spirit when he saw it. "You are a beautiful woman, and kind. I do not know why the Fates wrote of you as they did," he opined honestly. Hel's tired and sick face broke into a childish grin.

"Because they know me better than you," she winked, before sinking back into his mother's chair.

"The Fates are capricious," she continued seriously. "Loki blames them for what they wrote, but what he does not understand—what I did not understand until recently—is that every story needs its villains. Through no fault of our own, we were called to play those parts."

"But you've never seen yourself as a villain," Steve guessed, rocking in the chair with a rhythm he remembered. The times his father had taken up on his knee had lessened as Steve grew older, and some of it had been due to his increasing age and rate, but a larger part, he suspected, was attributed to the fact that his father did not want his son to smell to the alcohol on his breath or the despair in his eyes.

"It grew easier, as the years passed, and unassuming humans and gods alike were thrown at my feet. Tell me, King, What would _you_ do with a kingdom of souls, the unwashed masses found wanting by Odin All-father?"

"You don't mean that rhetorically," he ventured.

"I do not."

He contemplated the question for a while, pushing himself back and forth in the chair, finding the rocking motion oddly assuring. If he could bring this chair back, _this_ would be his throne, not the uncomfortable thing that Odin had sat upon.

"I guess," he said, "If I had been appointed a position I did not want and found myself ruler of souls wrongly condemned, I'd make the afterlife as good as I could."

"And, suppose you found yourself too depressed to make order of anything and suppose, further, that when you finally pulled yourself out of your black depression, you found out that the souls had made a dark place for themselves, fitting of their perceived failings?"

"In that case, I guess I'd figure out a way to get them back to life so they could try again."

It seemed to be the answered Hel wanted, because she nodded and smiled. "I knew I liked you," she said, leaning forward. The movement took effort, and she paused to cough.

"Everyone on Asgard is dead or almost dead, why aren't you?" Steve wondered.

"I am not as vain as they; I only took the apples of youth once you returned, and scantly, at that. My old visage was for show and little more. I am heartened that you do not know what I once looked like."

"You know the apples were the cause of the sickness?"

"Only until recently," Hel said. "Just because you cannot see the dead does not mean they're not there."

"Oh," Steve stopped rocking, finding the idea discomforting.

"I may see myself through this just yet. The only Aesir to survive the Great Sleeping Sickness."

"Would you be Queen of Asgard, then?"

Hel laughed wetly. "Hardly," she said. "My place is here."

"You were going to say something?" He prompted. "I'm sorry, I cut you off."

She waved her hand. "Think nothing of it. What I was to say is this: I am as like you. Upon the realization that my dead did not belong here, I orchestrated a way to send them back. I had to do so with great delicacy so that Odin could not do what I did. The gauntlet you ran was an accelerated version of the one every soul runs. It is painful, I know, and I am sorry. But forgetting the entirety of one's life is not easy, nor should it be."

"Are you saying that if I had "died" here, I would've returned to earth?"

"Somewhere," Hel said. "But yes, likely as not. A babe as fresh and new as the one you were once born into."

"Wait," Steve said slowly, "Was I here before?"

Hel gave a rich, wet laugh. When she had recovered from the bout of coughing that followed, she pierced Steve with a wise eye. "Dear King, there are some things not even the saviors of the worlds are meant to know."

"Oh," Steve continued to rock, puzzling over her words. He tried to remember a life before the one he knew, but there was nothing to indicate he'd been anyone other than Steve Rogers, asthmatic child and super soldier.

"But we have digressed, and there is not much time," Hel said, looking back out the giant windows. Steve followed her gaze; could see the dead in lines as they boarded their warships. "The dead that remain are those that have no place among the living; those that truly have earned a place of damnation. They seek to wreak all their hatred upon you. But," she said, looking back at Steve. "Though I am sick and old, I still have it within my power to stop them."

"What do you ask in return?" Steve asked, because he'd learned enough to know that favors were never free.

"That I be allowed to keep the memory of yours that I have, and that you come to visit me, from time to time."

"As for the former," Steve said, "You didn't have to ask it. It's a gift to you. Bruce told me the memory, and that's enough for me. And for the latter, that's hardly a request at all. I don't know what's going to happen once this is all done. I don't know, even, if we'll win. If we do, and the gods recover, I expect to relinquish the title back to Odin, and I won't have the access to Niflheim as I do now."

"As if the door from Asgard is the only one to my realm. If you are successful, I expect to see you here, from time to time, and I shall show you the path to my realm from your beloved Midgard. But, if you are _not_ successful, it shall be here, and not your Heaven, that you will retire to."

Steve froze. Heaven had been the hope he'd hinged himself upon for decades, both in World War II, and even more so now that he knew it actually existed. "My friends—" He began. "They're waiting for me. I promised them I would return."

"You will be my consort, and with it comes the knowledge that you may travel _all_ worlds. Your friends are not wrong. You will still visit them, but you cannot stay there. You do not have to accept; you may let the most vile of my realm ride to you."

Of all the deals he had made, this was the one that he wasn't sure he could consent to. He knew Hel had put it on the table because she was lonely but he also knew that, if he were to take Thor's place, he would die, as the Saga's had always intended. A single man could not hope to fight the World Serpent and win. And although tabling Hel's most loathsome would save him from an eternity spent in Niflheim, it would make the battle infinitely more difficult.

But they would all die one day regardless, and if not now, when? Why did he have to sacrifice paradise for them?

He knew that they would accept their fates willingly; that they would fight as hard and as long as they could, and die with dignity, if such a thing existed. He thought it didn't; he'd seen enough dead to know that there was hardly any dignity awarded in death. The bowels loosened, and the bladder, more oft than not. The bodies, if left for too long, would bloat and become discolored, and he could see no dignity or honor in that.

"I do not meant to pressure you," Hel said. "I think I know your thoughts. You know that your team will find their afterlife accordingly, and that you face sure death regardless. We are immortal: the time spent in your Heaven will not be slight, but you cannot dwell there."

"You mean to make me Persephone," he said.

"Ah, yes. The Greek child." Hel shrugged. "Unlike Hades, I give you choice, as you did me."

"If you do this, I can never love you," Steve said. "We would not be happy."

"Perhaps," the goddess acknowledged, "but even immortals learn to forget their transgressions, and Niflheim would do well with a king at my side."

"It is a heavy payment," Steve said. "And I already told you I would come to you willingly. You shouldn't force it on me."

For a brief moment, Hel looked exceedingly sad. "I have heard that once before, and though it was promised, it was not kept."

"But I _do_ promise," he protested. "If you know me at all, you know that I am a man of my word." Although he always acted as selflessly as he could, he found that Hel's terms surpassed his limit. He knew he was to die, and he counted on seeing his parents, his family again, and would live forever with them on the golden shores of Jordan.

He had a thing or two to say to God, if he ever got the chance.

"It is as you say," Hel nodded. "But I thought the one before you was a man of honor, and I was wrong. They," Hel motioned towards the ones boarding the ships, "are bad men, but they are dead. I expect your army can defeat them presently."

Steve suspected that if Hel knew everything she knew, she also knew that his "army" was three other humans and a belligerent Jotunn, and maybe, if he was very lucky, a scattering of humanity's best made ready by Agent Fury.

Feeling acutely tired and supremely old, he rubbed his temples. "I cannot accept these terms," he said. "I have pinned everything I do on the knowledge that I would one day live forever in the companionship of those have passed before me. I head into battle knowing I will die, and though I find you friendly enough, I know that were I to accept to your terms, I would hold only hate in my heart, and I do not want to spend my eternity in hatred. I would become no better than those souls preparing to set sail."

Hel sighed, the warmth in her eyes fading, replaced by something cold and calculating, and Steve thought her reputation might not be so unwarranted after all. "I had been lead to believe you were a selfless man, and would always act in consideration of those you hold dear. It appears I was wrong, and you are only a man after all. I am sorry we could not come to agreeable terms, both for myself and for your team."

Steve stood up stiffly, her words biting him to the core. He _knew_ he was acting selfishly, but he found he could not change his mind. He hoped he would not pay for it in death, would not be condemned to hell because he had made a selfish choice.

"If you have nothing else, then I will go. I have a war to prepare for. "

Hel waved her hand dismissively. "Leave. But—take that chair with you. I care not to be reminded of you any further."

He regarded the old wooden rocking chair. He didn't know how she'd kept it in such pristine condition, and he briefly considered keeping it with her for safekeeping. It was an unnecessary burden and extraneous, besides.

But it was the only thing he had that firmly linked him to his father, and his father before him, and that meant something. He hefted the chair over his shoulder. It was heavy enough, but he suspected the burden was more than just the physical. "I had thought we might be friends," he said, and he meant it. "I am sorry that we could not come to agreeable relations."

When Hel said nothing, he turned to leave. He was halfway across the throne room when she spoke up.

"You should know, Captain Rogers, that as long as you are king, you must not tread the paths that mortals walk. Simply wish for a place, and you might be there."

"Like Dorothy, then?" He asked with a slight grin.

"I do not know a Dorothy, but perhaps it is as you say."

Despite himself, he grinned at her. For the first time in recent memory, he'd made a reference to American pop culture that someone else hadn't understood, and he found himself absurdly proud. "_Wizard of Oz_," he informed her with a smugly, wishing for Asgard.

Instead of the cold halls of the foreign realm that he expected, he found himself instead in the doorway of a familiar room. There was an empty hearth, bordered by a gigantic and intricately carved mantle. He recognized the wallpaper, and the fern that sat on the cherry table. And the _smell_—he knew it instantly—had not smelled it in eighty years, and the memories that washed over him were from his childhood.

He was in the family room of his youth. His mother sat in a familiar chair, her belly swollen with child (_him, _he realized), and his father, just come back from the war, was standing at the window, pipe in hand.

"Do you think he'll be a great man?" His mother asked. His father turned to answer, and froze when he saw Steve standing at the doorway.

Steve quickly adjusted so that the chair—the very same one that rested currently in the living room—was hidden in the hall, and he managed to plaster a faint smile on his face.

In Steve's modern world, the intrusion of a stranger would be meat with violence and fear, and although he knew he must look strange in his khakis and bomber jacket, his father regarded him mildly.

"I'm afraid I didn't hear the bell," his father said, all formality and politeness. "The servants must've let you in, eh? I was not expecting visitors at this hour."

"This is a bad time," he said helplessly, back peddling as fast as he could.

"Steven," his father breathed after a moment, recognition dawning on his face, and Steve's heart sunk. Tony had shown him _Back to the Future_ and he didn't know how his father recognized him, but knew it was a paradox in the making. But his father continued, "It _is_ you, isn't it? When last I saw you, you were covered in bandages. I did not think you were going to live. The gas—"

"It's okay," he said quickly. "I'm okay. I didn't mean to interrupt you," and that was true, "I was in the neighborhood, and thought I would stop by. I apologize," he said weakly. He vaguely remembered his mother telling him that an old war friend of his father's had come to visit on the day of his birth. They'd found out later that the man had died the very same day of his wounds, and had named him in honor of the man who had saved his father.

On Steve's 8th birthday, while his father was well into his whiskey, the man had confided that he believed his wartime buddy had made it his last priority on this earth to say goodbye.

"There's no need to apologize," his father's face broke into a smile. "Come in. Will brandy do? I will pour us a glass, and we can catch up."

Steve was unable to tear his gaze from his mother. His parents looked so young, couldn't be older than he'd been when he'd taken the serum. His heart ached. He wanted to tell his father, "Don't put your faith in the stock market" and he wanted to tell his mother, "Father always loved you; don't search for the misplaced love as an aide in the hospitals once he is dead, your son needs you."

"I'm sorry I can't get up," she said warmly, a hand on her swollen belly. "I'm afraid the little one is being quite persistent."

"We expect him to come along directly," his father said with a wink before walking over to the liquor cabinet. "You were always a whiskey man, I know, but I promised to show you the finer points of brandy when last we spoke."

Steve felt like crying, but he forced a smile on his face. "No, it's all right. I'll be on my way, but I'll hold you to that drink."

"Are you sure?" His father asked, hesitating before an empty glass, the brandy tilted in anticipation.

"Absolutely sure," Steve promised. "I'll see myself out," he said quickly, feeling the tears gathering in the corner of his eyes unbidden. Stepping out of the doorway, he wished furtively for the Avengers, for Loki, and the world blurred once more around him.

When he stumbled at his arrival in Loki's chamber, startled green eyes met his. "You've been traveling. Through time."

"Yes," Steve said, not asking how Loki knew.

"You're carrying a chair," Loki frowned, bemused.

"Yes," Steve said, setting the chair down. He fell into it and wept without preamble.

Embarrassed, he covered his face with his hands. Maybe Tony's movies had been wrong, and he could've said the right words to save his parents. They'd have lived a normal life span, and he would've lived—and died—a normal man. He may never have been motivated to join the war effort, to take the super serum, be he'd have grown old naturally.

Ragnarök would still be a long way off, and maybe Loki would've died, but not yet. He'd still be Thor's petulant brother, and Steve wouldn't have known of any of it: would have died a happy man surrounded by his children and grandchildren. He wouldn't know how to use a cell phone or a computer, and wouldn't have cared; wouldn't have had it forced upon him.

"What happened?" Loki asked, brows raised, but Steve only shook his head. He had no way to put what he'd just seen into words.

When he had finally run himself dry and his eyes were still red, he stood up unevenly.

"This is to be my throne, as long as I am King."

Loki eyed the rocking chair. Whatever he felt about it, he kept to himself, and Steve was immeasurably grateful.

"Where were you?"

"I failed. Hel won't restrain her forces. Her price was too high." He felt tears well in his eyes in spite of himself, and he wiped them away angrily.

"Steve," Loki said evenly, "What the hell happened?"

"Just—not right now."

Loki looked at him with searching eyes. When the answers weren't forthcoming, he accepted Steve's plea.

"You may stay here," he offered. "It is night, and the dead have become more numerous and the halls grow crowded."

What he left unspoken, but what Steve knew, was that the ghosts were those of the Aesir, populating the halls in growing number. From what Steve could only assume was respect or habit, they abstained from entering the bedchambers, and Loki's was no exception.

"I do not have the accommodations, " Loki said after a glance around the room. "But you may take my bed."

"It's okay—I'll find my way back to my room. I just need a moment."

Steve knew that the Avengers had taken to piling up in Stark's guest room and that he wasn't like to run into them, but he wasn't sure he was ready to face the accusing looks of Asgard's dead. They had never meant to die before Ragnarök, and he had killed them all and hurried the arrival of the Apocalypse. They had been ambivalent in life, but in death, they were angry, sorrowful, and lost, and blamed him for all of it.

He meant to brave the dead and sleep in his own bed, but the chair, though uncomfortable, was familiar and welcoming. He nodded off into a fitful sleep; haunted by childhood memories and dreams where his parents still lived off the advice he'd thought to give him. He could go back, he could change everything—

—and he could change nothing, and he was as trapped as Loki had ever been.

When he awoke in the morning, there was a crick in his neck and a blanket draped over him. He looked over at Loki, already awake and standing at the balcony, and wondered if he had even slept at all. The covers, still in disarray without servants to make them, indicated he had, though the god looked exactly as he had the night before.

Loki looked over, his face troubled. Steve looked out the window, and felt his stomach lurch.

It was snowing.

Coming to stand beside his bonded, Steve could see that a light dusting had covered the landscape in white. The snowfall was minimal, but the dark clouds brewing over the mountains indicated that more was on the way.

Brushing off the bannister, Steve leaned against it with a heavy heart. He'd read as much as he could about strategies and tactics, and he'd notified Fury, but he still felt ill prepared for the coming war.

"You do not believe we will win," Loki said without preamble, the vapor of his breath forming a soft fog that dissipated in the cold air.

"No," Steve replied honestly. "We might have changed a lot of things, but this war was never meant to be won."

"You expect you will die, as Thor was meant to," Loki guessed, and the captain nodded, without saying anything. He was frightened, not only for himself, but because if they failed to divert Chaos, the earth would fall and the blood of billions would be on his hands.

He should have taken Hel up on her offer. Niflheim was better than Hell.

Burying his face in his hands, he cursed the choices he'd made. He'd always tried to do what he thought was right, and in doing so, had killed an entire people and brought the end of the world.

"You think this is your fault," Loki continued after a beat. "And perhaps this is so. Yet, though we may not win, we will surely lose if you continue to wallow as you do."

The captain looked up sharply. Anger washed over him, fueled by his anxiety and distress. "_Perhaps_ it is my fault? It damn well is, Loki! But you're not blameless, either! If we had let things lie, _none of this would have happened_. Everybody says they'd rather be free but they're dead and _we killed them_."

"Yet, you yourself have chosen death," Loki returned calmly.

Steve blinked, his righteous anger ebbing. "That's not the same thing," he returned. He knew he sounded petulant, and didn't care.

"Is it not?" Loki pushed away from the bannister, crossing his arms defensively. "It is your choice. You may seek solace in Yggdrasil and find safety while the worlds burn."

"That's not who I am," Steve said stonily.

"It is not who my people are." He continued after allowing the point to sink in, "Do you recall the first time our paths crossed?"

Steve squinted at Loki, trying to discern the direction he was taking the conversation in. "In Germany, sure."

"You said, "…the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing.'"

"I remember."

"I told you to kneel, and you would not."

Steve smiled slightly at the memory. It seemed far away, and he felt as though he'd been infinitely younger then than he was now. "What's your point?"

"Knowing everything that followed, would you have changed your mind? I only asked for subservience."

"No," Steve said quickly.

"None would have died," Loki pressed, "You would've lived in subservience to me, but those civilians wouldn't have been killed in the crossfire in Manhattan. Their deaths are as much on you as they are on me."

"It's not the same thing," he argued weakly, but part of him realized Loki was right. If he had bowed his head in Germany, Loki would've taken over the world. People may have stood up against him, but, Steve suspected, most would not have. The makeshift billboards with photographs and notes that had lined the streets of Manhattan would never have existed.

His knees felt weak, and he leaned on the bannister for support.

"Knowing all this, would you make the same decisions? Would you now have kneeled before me?"

"No," he admitted finally. "I still wouldn't kneel."

"Then, you cannot regret the decisions you've made."

Steve remained silent for a moment, absorbing Loki's words. His friend regarded him through hooded eyes, and the captain felt a wry smile pull at his lips in spite of himself. "Has anyone told you that you're shoddy at rallying morale?"

"It is not my job," Loki replied archly. "It is yours. Get it together, Steve Rogers. Your team needs you. Come, the Avengers are waiting for us in the war room."

Steve straightened.

"Let's get ready for war, then," he said.

0o0o0o0o0o

Bruce was beside Clint, taking notes on _How Wars are Won: The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror_ by Bevin Alexander. _On War_ by Clausewitz was anchoring Sun Tzu and Churchill and a bevy of others. Tony and Natasha were standing over the table, studying the maps and pointing out over watch positions and critical vulnerabilities of the arriving forces.

"What have we found out?" Steve asked.

"If the ships are to arrive on Greenland's north shore—and all the current models indicate they will—our best defense is here," Natasha said, pointing to a barren island, "Kaffeklubben Island, just north of Cape Morris Jesup I think we can control civilian casualties best from this position."

"Fury has guaranteed us close air support," Tony added, "and I had my guys mine the beach, with Greenland's blessing. We've told civilian militaries to stay in support positions only, since we're fighting supernatural forces. America has agreed to get some artillery in place, here, and here," he motioned to several over watch positions.

"I think we can get an electrical force up in time that will disrupt the wavelength of Hel's dead, if they're still coming." Bruce stood, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Did you have any luck negotiating with her?"

"No," Steve said shortly. "We could not come to terms."

Bruce nodded. "I think we have enough ghosts here that I can experiment with various frequencies before we engage. Clint and I checked out the armory yesterday, I think there's some weapons that we can use that are, according to lore, effective against the undead."

Steve nodded, before turning back to the maps. He put a finger on the rocky shores that indicated the plain of battle. "This is Vígríðr, then."

"It's what?" Tony leaned in.

"The field where the battle between the Aesir and Jotunn is destined to occur," Bruce supplied, pushing his books away so he could look at the maps.

"Okay, so I need somebody to explain how exactly this is supposed to go down," Tony looked up at Bruce before his eyes rested on Steve, and then Loki. "There seems to be this master plan about who kills whom, and where it happens, and so on and so forth, and I get that half of the forces won't even be there—since you know, already dead and dying—but it sounds like you're planning our defensive tactics with these plans in mind. So, spill."

Bruce and Steve shared a look, but it was Loki who began to explain.

"There are many signs that indicated the start of Ragnarök, some of which we have already become aware: Jörmungandr will writhe, and break free the ships of the dead from their moorings. A winter, fimbulvinter, which was to last three years, would occur," Loki said, glancing out the windows.

Shutting the doors to the balconies had taken the effort of Steve and the Hulk combined, so rusted and unused were the hinges. They'd shut out the cold, but the winter was evident behind the soft glass.

"Surt, the fire giant, would set the walls of this hall afire, and the Bitfrost as well. Fenrir, the wolf, will break free of his chains and spread hate and pain and desolation. Skoll and Hati, his brothers, will engulf the sun and the moon."

"Jesus H. Christ," Tony moaned. "I can see why nobody wanted to share this joyful piece of news. Wolves can't really eat celestial bodies though, right? That's a metaphor to something, right?"

Loki shrugged.

"I do not know." He continued, "In the sagas, Odin was to be killed by Fenrir, and I was to fight and kill Heimdall—and be killed in the process. Jörmungandr would fight Thor, and be dealt a killing blow by his mighty hammer… and then my brother would take nine steps and die. And then, once we were all dead, Surt would set fire to all the nine worlds and, in a flaming inferno, they would sink into the boiling sea."

"Well," Tony declared, looking a little pale, "This is super fantastic news if I've ever heard it."

"The Aesir can't come to the field of battle though," Clint said, pushing one of the shot glasses around the map. His mouth pulled in a frown. "So what's supposed to happen now?"

"We think a lot of this _is_ metaphor, as Tony thought," Bruce picked up the rubber snake Tony had kept in his luggage. _Why_ Tony had rubber snakes in his luggage was anybody's guess. "And the timeline has been upset, so we might be safe from some of the worst. But—I am going to fight Fenrir. With the Hulk, I think we have a chance of winning."

"I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but how are you going to manage that when Odin couldn't?"

"Because," Bruce grinned, "It's two on one. And besides, the Sagas are no longer applicable, so it's something of a free-for-all."

"Fury's got an air fleet with fire-fighting capabilities, and he's going to launch them at the first sign of Surt," Natasha supplied.

"I need you and Clint to take down the wolves," Steve said. "I think it should be relatively quick, as you're both experts at long range weaponry. After that, you'll handle whatever land forces have landed. With any luck, your mines will handle most of it."

"Sure, boss, easy day," Tony tapped his etched Ironman shot glass. "What about you?"

"I will take Thor's place and fight the World Serpent," Steve declared with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

Tony caught the look shared between Bruce and Loki, but didn't comment on it.

"I think we've got this handled," Natasha said, "if you want to grab a little shut-eye. We'll wake you if anything changes but right now we're on autopilot."

Steve looked as though he was about to protest, but he nodded after a moment, and turned to leave the war room. When his steps had faded, Tony frowned at Bruce. "You need to level with me. I saw that look you guys gave each other." He fluttered a hand at Loki. "What gives?"

"It is of no concern of yours," Loki said stonily before storming out.

"This is bullshit," Tony said once the god had also left. "I saw that look you just gave Bruce, Nat. You can't keep us in the dark—unless you know what's going on, Clint, and then it's "secret squirrel" business for everyone except Tony Stark."

"Don't look at me," Clint held up his hands. "I'm just a grunt, nobody tells me anything."

"The Steve battle means to fight is meant to be one of mutually assured destruction," Bruce finally informed them.

Tony looked at the doorway Steve had just passed under, felt the blood draining from his face. "No," he said. "No," he repeated, when Natasha looked at him sadly. "We didn't go to _Niflheim_ so he could die fighting this stupid war! I mean this stuff isn't even real! It's _mythology_ and I like having Thor around as well as anyone, but we're_ people of science_."

When Bruce and Natasha said nothing, Tony straightened and scowled at them. "_No_," he repeated, as if that was all that was needed to divert destiny.

Before anyone could respond, he stormed out.

"I'll go after him," Bruce told Natasha, following in the Ironman's footsteps.

0o0o0o0o

Bruce found Tony rifling through Loki's cabinet. He didn't seem to care about the vintage or expense of the bottle-just the alcoholic proof. Finding a jar of moonshine (bottled, in Loki's sprawling handwriting, by West Virginia's McCoys in 1860, and Bruce refused to dwell on the irony of Tony's choice.)

Forgoing the use of a glass, Tony pulled up a chair. When he realized he wasn't alone, he motioned for Bruce to join him, and the scientist settled into the offered chair.

"I don't need your condemnation," Tony informed him. "You can sit here and drink with me on the eve of battle, or you can go."

"I would be remiss to turn down a bottle of moonshine," Bruce said mildly, grabbing a glass. "Fill her up." And Tony did, the clear liquid splashing over the side of the cup. After a moment, he poured himself a glass as well.

"Ready?" Tony asked.

"Let's do this." Bruce held his glass up, and nodded in Stark's direction. They threw the glass back.

"Christ, that's awful," Tony complained, once he set the shot glass down on the table with a slap.

"Like drinking rubbing alcohol, I'm sure," Bruce agreed, feeling the burn in his throat. For a moment, he thought his stomach might reject it, and he shifted uneasily.

"Another." And Tony filled the glass up once more.

"Be kind on me," Bruce protested. "I'm not used to drinking like this."

"We can talk after another shot," Tony informed him primly, downing the shot. After a moment, Bruce did the same, nearly choking on the vile liquid. The alcohol settled warm in his belly, and after days of poor sleep and worse eating, he felt the effect almost immediately.

They sat in relative silence, absorbing the alcohol they'd just ingested. "Oh," Tony noticed belatedly. "Looks like Loki's started a fire."

Bruce looked at the fire burning merrily in the grand fireplace. Why a country absent of winter had ever thought to build a hearth was beyond him, but then, they'd always known they were to suffer three years of winter. It showed surprising foresight for a people that had lived in an eternal summer.

The fact that none of them were conscious to enjoy the hearths they'd built did not go unnoticed by Bruce.

"Then, let's sit in front of it," Bruce stood up, dragging the chair across the marble floor. He knew he should be mindful of the scratches he might make. But then again, Asgard was meant to burn to the ground, and he didn't have the energy to lift the heavy oaken chair off the ground.

They sat in companionable silence. Bruce was happy to relax, the warmth of the alcohol flooding his veins. He could tell from the way Tony gripped his glass and the lines in his brow that the man was mulling over the things he'd just learned.

Just as he'd begun to nod off, hypnotized by the flames of the fire, Tony said: "This destiny stuff is bullshit."

"How very Lutheran of you."

Stark snorted.

"We are men of science," Bruce said, echoing Tony's earlier words. "But we have both seen and lived things that science cannot explain. I don't know what the upcoming battle holds, but I've seen what predestination does to a people. Everyone on this planet has done exactly what the Fates always said they were going to do, and they're no better off for it."

"You're saying Steve might live."

"We might _all_ live. I don't know. That's the glory of it. Not knowing, I mean."

Tony considered his glass. Taking a swig, he peered at Bruce. "I don't believe that," he said. "Everyone said that your travels would grant you all the answers to the universe, so you gotta know what's coming."

"The only thing I really learned is how much I didn't know," Bruce said, leaning into the flames, grateful for their warmth.

"Ha!" Stark barked. "I hope you had a good time, anyway. Meet any sweet alien ladies? Here, have another glass."

"Loki won't be happy we've drunk all his moonshine," Bruce mused, but he held out his glass all the same.

"If Asgard burns down tomorrow, he won't even know it's gone."

Bruce laughed. "Fair enough," he said, throwing the shot back. It didn't burn quite as badly as before, and he wasn't sure if he should be worried about that.

"Listen, I don't really want to talk theology," Tony glanced at him. "Because honestly, I don't know what to believe anymore. So, let's talk about other stuff, at least for tonight."

"Sure," Bruce nodded, swirling the glass in his hand.

When the jug of moonshine was halfway empty and the ghosts of Asgard's dead moaned in the hallways, Bruce looked up when a cool draft hit him, finding Loki in the door, a mass of ghosts behind him.

He looked weary and angry, but Tony held up the jug. "There's enough for all of us," he said, a sloppy smile plastered on his face.

Bruce thought the god was going to rage at them, and he certainly looked as though he were as he crossed the room. But then he took the jug out of Tony's head and took several liberal gulps straight from the jug.

"Let us be enjoy tonight," he said, "for tomorrow we die."

"I," Tony declared, throwing back a shot. "Do not agree with that sentiment. But I will drink all the same," he said, pouring the clear liquid sloppily into his glass.

0o0o0o0o0o

If Steve could grow gray hairs, Natasha thought he might.

He ran his hair through his blond locks repeatedly, head bowed over the maps and sagas. The crown sat on one of the corners, holding the right side of Asgard down.

She sauntered into the throne room, picking up the crown. Ancient paper curled up without a weight to hold it. Irritation flashed in weary eyes before he smoothed it away, and Natasha wondered why he insisted on being so stoic; so righteous.

"What's going on, Nat?"

"Many man have sought the power you hold. You could do whatever you wished. You could break yourself from Earth when it burns, take refuge in Yggdrasil, and be the king of all the worlds," she said, casually studying the jewels encrusted in ancient gold.

"Nine _burned_ worlds," Steve pointed out. "But, I'm not sure who would want to be ruler of that."

"Let's say we win, then. You'll just pack it all up and do what? Go back to being Captain Steve Rogers?" She pressed. She had always known Steve would do the best that he could, but she had never ascertained why, and that bothered her. She usually had a good read on people, but she had trouble believing that anyone—even the indefatigable Steve Rogers, wouldn't want to at least try and rule.

"Well-yeah," he answered with a shrug. "Why would I want to be ruler of all this?" He swept a hand over the maps.

"Why wouldn't you want to be? Don't give me a contrived answer—" she cut in when he opened his mouth. "Men have gone to war over land and ownership and kingdoms for much less. And it's been all handed to you. Why don't you want to keep it?"

Steve leaned back against the ornate chair. She could tell from his silence and the thoughtful look on his face that he had a reason, but had never been asked to explain it before.

"Would you?" He finally asked.

"No, but, I think, for entirely different reasons. Why don't _you_?" She pressed.

"It is not what my forefathers fought for. Not what my parents fought for."

"They are dead," Natasha responded. "And I don't care about them. I want to know why you'll throw all this away," she motioned to the throne room, "as soon as the war is over."

"I don't know what you want me to say, Nat," he replied, irritated. "I don't want it. My only interest is taking care of you guys, and the Earth, as much as I can."

Natasha continued carefully, "But if you were to take the place of the All-father, you could do that, and more. The worlds would never have to war again, and you could prevent any incursions by alien forces on Earth."

To the captain's credit, he considered her words. From the way his face screwed up in thought, she knew he'd never thought of the situation from that point of view.

"I don't know," Steve said helplessly. "It's just never appealed to me."

Natasha slid into a chair across from him, studying the map, finding his answer oddly satisfying. "If you do not defeat the Serpent, we are lost. Even if we defeat the Ice Giants, we cannot win."

"I know," Steve said, accepting the change in conversation easily. If there was a break in his voice, Natasha ignored it.

"Many men would take what they have and negotiate."

"I cannot negotiate with Chaos," Steve said. "I wouldn't even know where to begin."

"You can always negotiate," Natasha said, looking up at him over the world between them.

"I'm not any good at that sort of thing," he admitted, staring bleakly at his map. His shield was propped up against the table beside him, and he glanced at it longingly. "Just point me in the direction where I can do the most damage, and that's fine by me."

"But you're our leader," she stressed. "It's your job to point _us_."

Steve laughed humorlessly, and she thought it did not suit him. "Maybe, but you asked what I wanted. I want to fight and win, and be done with it."

"We may lose," Natasha pointed out, ignoring his plea. "And then we will have nothing."

"During the American Revolution, do you know how many men and women fought? How many took arms?"

Natasha shook her head; curious at the direction he was going.

"Twenty percent—a vast minority. Many put their stake on what they perceived to be the winning side. Many more waited to cast their die, seeing who would win. Twenty percent won the war against a nation of warfighters."

"You are only one man," Natasha said. "Not even twenty percent of the team."

"That is one more than we had before," Steve said. "And two more, when you stand beside me."

Natasha studied Steve a long time. She finally nodded. "You know you never had to ask. Of course I will follow you into death."

"You know what waits."

"We Russians have never been the sentimental type." She stood. "Sleep. You have studied all you can."

"I know," Steve said, running a hand through his hair. "But what if I missed something?"

"You will have missed everything, if you don't get rest." She turned to go.

"Hey—" Steve began, and she turned. "I don't want the power because I'm afraid of it," he admitted.

Natasha smiled, and said nothing in return.

As she walked to her chambers, she found herself oddly content. She'd chosen her leader well.

Chapter End

A/N

The Hatfield and the McCoys are two families famous for their feud that lasted almost thirty years (1862-1891) This legendary feud was started, as far as anyone's aware, of the ownership of a hog. Although there had been bad blood between the families for several year priors, when one of the McCoy's joined the Union. Everyone else in the area had joined the Confederacy, and his choice was perceived to a huge dishonor both to his family and the region, and he was murdered by a relative of the Hatfields, Jim Vance. It was, however, the hog that resulted in the killing of a Hatfield being killed by a McCoy, starting what, many historian believe, to be the beginning of the feud. ~12 people were killed over a period of 25 years.

Bruce's comment to Tony, ""How very Lutheran of you." Is a call back to the Reformation, in which Martin Luther rebelled against John Calvin's interpretation that God had willed eternal damnation to some and salvation to others, regardless of their behavior on Earth.


	9. King and Lionheart

Chapter 9 King and Lionheart

_Howling ghosts – they reappear_

_In mountains that are stacked with fear_

_But you're a king and I'm a lionheart._

_And in the sea that's painted black,_

_Creatures lurk below the deck_

_But you're a king and I'm a lionheart._

_His crown lit up the way as we moved slowly_

_Past the wondering eyes of the ones that were left behind._

_Though far away,_

_We're still the same._

_And as the world comes to an end_

_I'll be here to hold your hand_

_'Cause you're my king and I'm your lionheart._

King and Lionheart—Of Monsters and Men

Fury had requested a briefing of their upcoming battle. Tony and Bruce had worked to get communication in the war room, which has required several trips back to the tower.

Steve found it surprisingly easy to send them back and forth. It required almost no thought on his part—just a simple wish—and they were gone. When they were ready to come back, he instinctively knew it, and would call them back.

The power was simultaneously frightening and alluring. He thought back to his conversation with Natasha, and knew his answer had been right: he was afraid what he would do, with so much power at his fingertips. He thought he would always act with honor, but it would be deceivingly easy to make judgment calls about another and to condemn them accordingly.

If he'd had the power now that he'd had when the tax collectors had come to retrieve the remains of his family's heritage, would he have cursed them to an afterlife in Niflheim? He liked to think he wouldn't, but although they were only just men carrying out their duties, he'd hated them for a long time, and he wasn't sure he'd have acted honorably.

When he had first met Loki, and they'd battled over the Mistletoe, if he'd had the ability to send Loki to his destiny years before he'd gotten there, with all the power of Asgard at his fingertips, he wondered if he would've.

He thought it probable, and that scared him.

It was incredibly easy to make a judgment on a person, and at the time, it had been deceivingly easy to cast things in definitive shades of black and white. Admittedly, Hitler and Red Skull had cast themselves as villains. It had been easy to fight them in the name of righteousness, and to cast Loki in the same mold seventy years later.

With the power he held, how many would he wrongly condemn?

The rest of the team filed in. Tony had prepared several powerpoint slides, if for no other reason to impress Fury with his ability to relay information across time and space.

Steve, in an act of belligerence, had failed to prepare slides on Tony's laptop. Instead, he had his ancient maps, and a few of the ones Tony had brought back, plastered to the wall. When it was his turn to brief, he indicated the points where he wanted mines.

"The UN isn't going to be happy," Fury advised, when Steve was done.

"They'll be less happy when the entire world is boiling in its oceans," the captain returned shortly.

Fury drummed the table, his image blurring and fizzy. Bruce adjusted something on Tony's computer, and Fury's image came into stark relief. "What about when they land?"

"Blockades on the shore. They're numerous and they're smart, but they haven't updated their tactics in 1500 years," Steve informed him. "We can use World War II tactics, and it'll still confuse the hell out of them."

"We'll call it a training exercise," Fury finally said. "Hill," the man turned to the woman behind him, "Start coordinating with our counterparts."

"On it, sir," and furious typing filled the air as Fury studied the map he'd been sent.

"The end of the world?" He finally asked, and if Steve didn't know better, there was uncertainty in his eye.

"If we lose," Steve said. "But we won't."

"You'd better not," Fury said fiercely, before adding, "Whatever assets you need, they're yours. If you fail—" he trailed off. "—the world doesn't have a contingency plan. God save us."

"Yes, sir," Steve said.

"Dismissed."

Running a hand through his hair, Steve turned to the team.

"Any last minute questions? We don't know when they're coming, so I suggest everyone gets a good night sleep."

The team was silent, and Natasha finally shook her head to indicate they had no questions. A thousand questions of his own brimmed below the surface, and he expected a million more rested on his team, but they were not questions he could answer, and they knew it.

He turned and headed back to his chambers. He could hear the chairs scrape and the team silently follow out and for once, Stark had nothing snarky to say.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Steve rose with the winter sun. It sat low on the horizon a hazy orb behind the clouds, and he knew it would make a slow, marginal arc across the sky before settling in the West. The snow continued to fall, and it wouldn't be long before they were completely snowed-in.

But they were leaving before the next morning for Earth, and the war that came with her.

Steve wondered if the Aesir would freeze in their ancestral home, only to awake with the thaw of spring. The Sagas had never mentioned that possibility.

Despite the fire burning in the giant hearth, there was a chill in the air, and Steve's attention was drawn to the forlorn figure that stood on the snowy balcony. The doors were opened wide enough to allow a growing snowdrift to form just inside the room.

There was a time that Steve would have been unsettled by Loki's unbidden presence in his room while he slept, but he knew that Loki sought him out the same way Steve had begun to seek him.

The end of the world scared Steve in a way few things had, but he thought he'd be worse off without Loki and his team at his side, and there was something to be said for best friends in the face of destruction.

"This was my home," Loki said, turning to look at Steve, his face a study of neutrality, but the captain knew it was a front. "I ran through those fields with my brothers as a child."

Throwing back the covers, he padded to where the god rested on the veranda. Loki had swept the snow off with his magic, Steve was sure. He admitted that there was something beautiful about a virgin landscape, encased in white.

They would not even have to mar it to travel to Midgard's hidden door to find their way home; Steve could transport them all effortlessly.

If they failed, the Aesir would burn where they froze, when Surt came for them, and there was something oddly appropriate in the concept.

"I thought you called Jotunheim your true home," Steve said mildly, coming to rest on the bannister. He cast a longing look on the fire, and wished Loki had decided to muse there, instead.

"I thought so too," Loki acknowledged, glancing at him before looking out at the cold landscape. "But I was wrong. There is no place for me there."

"I never thought I belonged," Steve admitted, "until it was too late, and then I'd realized I was always where I was meant to be."

Loki gave him a considering look.

"There is irony, I must admit, that the future of my people depends on the success of the people we considered most insignificant."

"There's a difference between insignificance and underestimation. Just because your people never thought we were paying attention to doesn't make it true."

Loki looked askance, an eyebrow raised.

"There is truth in that, but we learned our lesson too late."

"We'll win this," Steve said with as much conviction he could muster.

"Save your rallying speeches for the team. You do not believe it, and I do not require the motivation. The battle is a fool's game."

"No," the captain returned, "That's where you're wrong. If I thought we going to fail, I wouldn't risk the lives of everyone I care about. I'd send them home and tell them to enjoy their last days on life and let Chaos steamroll us."

"Everyone died in the original stories; I fail to see your point."

"Everyone died, but everything didn't _end_. Death doesn't mean failure."

"I do believe," Loki turned to look at Steve fully, his green eyes ascertaining, "that you actually _believe_ that this looming war where a gaggle of 'super hero' Midgardians and woefully lacking military forces from interested countries will somehow defeat the legions of Chaos."

"I've fought monsters before."

"But you didn't win," Loki said.

"Didn't I?" Steve pierced Loki with a look, and green eyes widened as he realized the captain was referring to _him_.

"I was wrong about you, Steve Rogers."

"I thought you were never wrong," Steve returned mildly with a slight grin.

"Sometimes," Loki sighed, "I think I have never been right."

The look Steve gave him was thoughtful.

Thor had always disregarded his musings with humor, and Balder had tried to respond with wisdom and advice. His captain was the only person that listened to Loki without indifference or assumed superiority.

As he studied the captain's tense lines, the set of his jaw and the apprehension in his eyes, Loki realized how deeply the tendrils of their friendship went. Steve expected to die in battle, and Loki knew this time there could be no valiant rescue from the depths of Niflheim to bring him back.

Perhaps this was the curse of the mistletoe, he thought, noticing the white knuckled clench Steve had on the bannister. He'd assumed for years that it only entailed of being tethered to another soul for better or worse, and had never thought to consider the bond they'd formed as a result. Steve Rogers knew Loki better than any Asgardian, better, perhaps, than Frigga.

He wondered if everything that had happened had been his mother's intent, or if she had simply been happy averting the Fates.

But then, his mother had been a complex woman and he did her dishonor to think she would've been so single minded in her efforts.

He wasn't sure if he should be grateful for her meddling, or angry. He wished she were still alive, so that he might discuss the issue with her.

Thinking of her body, cold and white in the shadows of her statue, he realized he'd been remiss; he'd left so many things unspoken because he thought he'd an eternity to ask them.

He still saw her around the palace: in the tapestries that looked liker her flowing dresses out of the corner of his eye; in his expectation to see her soft smile and knowing eyes. His heart clenched.

A cock crowed into the silent morning, it's call loud in the still air, and the look his bonded gave him was one of such apprehension, that Loki knew the captain knew what it had been.

"Is that—" Steve started, looking to Loki for verification.

"The golden rooster, Gullinkambi," Loki confirmed. "It begins."

"Better suit up. I'll let the team know, and we'll mobilize,"

He wanted to tell Steve a thousand things, as if doing so would right all the things he'd never said to Frigga. But Steve was already turning away, and Loki had run out of time so all he said was, "Good luck."

Steve flashed him a smile.

"You, too," he said, but he was distracted, already moving across Loki's chambers with haste, giving up any sense of propriety a moment later as his speed walk became a jog, and the beat of his feet against the empty halls echoed long after the captain had gone.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

They arrived in Greenland without incident. A bleak north wind blew incessantly over the spit of land, and the waves crashed in expectation. The clouds were dark and low, and Natasha could see rain over the icy ocean.

The sails of Jotunheim's great ships were already evident on the horizon. Distant specks that roiled with the ocean, their great blue banners flew stiffly in the wind.

She searched the distance for Hel's fleet and was surprised to find them absent.

There was time before the fleet arrived, and she glanced back to where Bruce and Tony were fiddling with their EMP device and wondered if it would work. It seemed a long shot by her reckoning.

She supposed Steve probably thought the same, but he knew that the sense of duty and substance it gave them was worth more than the knowledge that what they were doing was futile. At any rate, it was the only shot they had against the armies of the dead.

Turning away, she sought Steve's distant figure. He stood on the farthest stretch of land, his back straight.

Even from this distance, she could see that he clutched his shield tightly. His blonde hair ruffled in the wind, and his shoulders were slightly hunched against the cold, but he struck a heroic image all the same, and Natasha knew she'd chosen well to follow him into battle.

She suspected none of them would make it out of this alive, but she couldn't think of a worthier cause to give her life for. She'd always lived as a survivor, and gotten out of several sticky situations in her time, and she knew she could've done the same here—could still do.

Once the battle began, she wouldn't be missed in the chaos and could seek refuge in Yggdrasil. _She _would be Embla.

She glanced back at the hastily constructed bunker that Clint was holed away in. Fury had issued him specially tailored arrows that would explode on impact, and the Hulk was set to guard his position. Although she couldn't see him in the gloomy darkness, she liked to imagine he was looking back at her.

She could take him with her, and he would be Ask, and they would emerge as phoenixes on the other side of the world. It wouldn't be much of a life, but it would be a damn sight better than their current situation.

But she had read the sagas, too, and erased as they might be, she knew that the two humans meant to survive the Apocalypse would repopulate the world and herald in a new era for humanity.

For all that escaping appealed to her baser instincts, the world she would make with Clint would be based off shame. While she'd done a lot of questionable things in her time, she didn't think she could do _that_.

Natasha turned back to the approaching ships, clutching her weapon tightly by her side.

No, she thought, squaring her shoulders. Today was a good day to die, and this time, she was dying _for_ something. That didn't mean a lot, but it was enough for her.

0o0oo0o0o0o

Tony whooped as the rallied close air support zoomed overheard. He could see Rhodey in front, his brightly colored and somewhat gaudy suit bright against the storm clouds.

"Good of you to make it," Tony said brightly into his comm.

"And miss out on a good fight? Never. Although, I've been meaning to ask—are you responsible for this debacle?"

"I'm hurt you would think so," Tony replied glibly. Rhodes snorted.

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time," the War Machine returned in kind before he grew serious. "Fury briefed us on the plan. Hey, did they seriously bring wooden ships to a 21st century fight?"

"Yeah—but don't underestimate them," Tony said tightly. "Fury tell you about the EMP?"

"Sure did. We'll alert you when we see—" Rhodey paused as if he couldn't quite believe what he was saying "—the army of the dead. And pull our guys out so you can set that thing off."

"Comm will go down once we've pressed it, but the radius is pretty limited. I'm going to beat feet before Banner's pressed the button, so we can rally at the knoll indicated on the briefing."

"Roger that. Hey—is that Captain America? What's he waiting for?"

Tony turned to Steve's distant figure.

_He's waiting to die_, he thought.

"He's got a date with the World Serpent," he said instead, and grimaced into his mask blackly.

"We're going to have to sit down over a drink after this is all done and talk about this, because even after Fury's brief, I can't say I really _get_ any of this."

"Sure, I'm going to hold you to that." Tony wondered if Rhodey knew their chances of survival and thought he probably didn't.

"War Machine out," Rhodey signed off, and Tony watched as his friend dialed up his speed, leading the air fleet out over the ocean.

His heart swelled with excitement when a F-35 landed a well-placed shot on one of the leading ships. It burst into flames, the burning pieces claimed by the stormy waves relatively quickly.

Just as he was thinking, _we got this_, Bruce asked, "Is that a _dragon_?"

"Nobody said anything about dragons," Tony returned before zooming in his specs to the sky.

The scientist was right—although only vaguely related to the depictions of scaled monsters so popular in Western European culture, there was no doubt about it—the thin, angry looking things with teeth too long and claws too sharp were dragons, or something like it.

"But, they're only flying lizards," Tony began, before he saw one of them grab a F-18 out of the air with its spindly claws, crushing the plane like a can. "Oh, shit."

"What happened?" Bruce peered over the horizon. He grabbed for the binoculars he'd thoughtfully decided to bring along. He watched the ensuing dogfights between quickly maneuvering jets and creatures that had no right to exist, before he let the lenses rest against his chest. "They've already taken out five of our guys, and the missiles only seem to make them angrier," he said distantly, helplessly.

"Watch now—they're almost on our mines."

"Hey, you guys got any word of Hel's dead yet?" Clint asked, his voice tinny and empty sounding, closed away in his bunker as he was.

"Nothing," Tony said back.

"Oh, shit!" Clint crowed, echoing Tony. "They just hit the first mine!"

The closest ship erupted in flame, shooting wood and ice giants into the air. The fleet continued moving forward, if only through momentum, and several more met the same fate. Now that the fleet had grown closer, Tony realized just how impossibly huge it was.

"Fury," Steve's voice came in tight over the radio, "Where's our ground support? You promised me tanks."

"_You _try negotiating with Denmark," Fury replied heatedly. "Just hold your horses, they'll be there in a minute."

"We don't _have_ a minute," Steve snapped back.

"Just hold on," Fury said.

"Anybody got eyes on the World Serpent yet?"

The first ship that had cleared the mines was closing in on the shore. Just as its occupants began offloading, Tony watched as Loki raised his staff, forming a green ball of lightning formed from the sphere on the end. He loosed the energy, and it shot forward, sparking over the bow of the ship and up the masts, like a particularly vengeful St Elmo's Fire.

The ship continued moving forward without direction, crashing against the land with a bone-shuddering crunching sound, the wood splintering as it came aground against the rocks of the stony shore.

The smell of the electrocuted dead was evident even from this distance. Tony felt something uncomfortable shift in his chest.

"Did you know he could do that?" He asked Bruce rhetorically.

"Good thing he's on our side."

"Anybody got eyes on the dead yet? Good or bad?"

"No," Natasha said.

"I'm no good here," Tony told Bruce. "I'm going to go get those ships while our planes are tied up."

"Sure," Bruce nodded, "But watch it—I know they're _only_ F-18s, but watch your six anyway. Use War Machine, if he's still around."

Tony nodded, a heavy weight sinking in his stomach. Bruce was right—they hadn't heard from Rhoady in a minute, and while he was sure it was because his friend was too busy fighting to talk…

He shot up into the air, out over the ocean, and engaged the closest ship.

0o0o0o0o0o

Steve stood on the point, the stormy shoals, the waves crashing against his boots. He clutched his shield tighter in his grip, could feel the leather creak.

He was incredibly tense, but his muscles felt liquid. The anticipation of battle was a feeling he'd never enjoyed, but knew well.

The ships of Valhalla had come—_late_—but they had come. And they were engaged in a full-blown sea battle, but they were both societies whose hay day had been before the invention of gunpowder. Steve watched in awe as the ships engaged in ramming tactics and boarding even as they inched towards the shore to continue the battle on ground.

Above them, dragons and F-18s were dog-fighting, and there was something hilariously incongruous about it.

But then the first ships had landed, and though Steve knew he had to hold out for the World Serpent, he couldn't very well stand aside while the Jotunn wreaked havoc.

Besides, he happened to be in the very place the ships came aground.

Blocking a blow from a spear-wielding giant, he thrust his shield out, catching one of the Jotunn in the chest with the edge of his shield. It managed to dent the ornate armor, and Steve saw the brief look of surprise before he followed up with a hit to the giant's gullet.

Blood erupted as he severed the Jotunn's artery, and he fell back to the earth, his last living moments spent clutching at his throat.

He managed to catch the next blow just in time, his enemy's spear breaking across his shield moments after he'd brought it up to guard his face. He felt the point slide off, and he pushed forward; hitting what he could only assume was the solar plexus of the giant as he fell back with an _oof_.

He struggled to get his feet under him, but stumbled on the icy shores and fell heavily. Steve drove his shield down through the Jotunn's helmet and into his skull.

Pulling it free with a sickening sound, he was onto his next enemy. He had a moment to breathe between opponents, and chanced a look out over the ocean.

Most of the ships had landed, but there was still no indication of Hel's army, and he wondered where they were.

Belatedly, he realized he'd paused too long. He turned as quickly as he could, bringing his shield to bear, knowing he was too late…

…when the Jotunn bearing down on him with raised axe crumpled in a burst of green electricity.

Loki stood on the other side.

"Don't get sloppy," he said, before turning, swinging his staff out like a melee weapon, cold cocking the closest ice giant. When the head of the staff met with the creature's head, it erupted green once more, and the Jotunn slumped bonelessly to the ground.

"I've got your back if you've got mine," Steve said with a grin.

"As if you had to ask," Loki turned with a grin of his own, and they fought back to back.

Steve was aware of the War Machine and Iron Man doing considerable damage around them. Occasionally, one of his enemies, drawn too close, would stumble back with an arrow in his gut, and Steve knew Clint was doing well.

Finally, there was a lull in the battle. Steve blinked, and realized he stood amongst a mass of dead and dying Jotunn and the warriors from Valhalla. Some had loosed their bowels upon death, and the air was ripe with blood and defecation, and as the battle high lessened, Steve felt his stomach lurch from the gore.

He didn't think he'd ever get used to the gruesome nature of battle, of killing.

"Did we win?" He heard Tony ask over the comm, and watched his red-gold suit coming in for a landing.

"That was just the first wave," Loki returned.

"Oh, _super_ awesome," Tony landed delicately, his hands splayed as his jets brought him in.

"The dead haven't showed," Natasha said. "Hel's dead," she clarified, glancing at Valhalla's ships.

"There's more Jotunn coming?"

"And Surt, to set the world aflame," Loki added.

"At least we get a breather—" Tony began, when the land shifted heavily, and they stumbled.

"You just had to jinx it," Clint muttered.

The frozen ice cracked and gave way as a massive serpent roiled, his serpentine body a dark shadow beneath the gray water.

"I'll draw him away," Steve said, finding his footing. "You all handle the stragglers and get ready for the next wave."

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Steve had been drawn away from the shoreline in the midst of battle, but he headed for it again now, his shield clutched in his hand. Although the serpent had yet to surface, he could see it moving beneath the waves.

Moments before he reached the spit of land, the great Sea Serpent, Jörmungandr, embodiment of chaos and the Ender of Days, raised its head amongst the ice floes. It eyed Steve with reptilian eyes, the color of a winter's day, and watched him with an intelligence he hadn't expected. Frost gathered at its mouth and doom was in his grin.

"I am Death, Destroyer of Worlds," the serpent hissed, "But I am also the greatest benefactor you've ever known, if you stand down."

"I don't bargain with monsters," Steve said with as much confidence as he could muster, but Natasha's voice was in his head. "You could negotiate." He quelled the thought and squared his shoulders, as if the act would make him appear bigger, more formidable.

"You compare me to your mortals. It is folly."

Steve aimed to reply, but suddenly found himself not in icy lands of the Northern seas of the modern world but instead in a smoky bar, a 12-part combo playing _The Best is Yet to Come_ on a raised stage. And that wasn't quite right—Steve hadn't heard the song until JARVIS had introduced him to Frank Sinatra—but Peggy was pressed against him, and they moved to the slow beat, and he decided it didn't really matter.

_Peggy_, Steve realized, and it was important, knowing this, but he didn't know why. He couldn't imagine a world without Peggy.

"You kept your promise," Peggy sighed as she smiled up at him, her dark eyes sparkling in the reflected candle light from the tables.

"I'm not a man to break my word," he repeated the rehearsed words he'd practiced a thousand times.

He'd practiced them _somewhere_, and he thought of ice when he did, but that didn't make sense.

"I know," Peggy said, resting her head against his chest. He became aware of only her warmth—the way her hand clasps his and the fresh smell of her hair. "I'd expect no less."

"I had the strangest dream," Steve breathed into her hair.

She pulled back, her perfect mouth curving in a smile.

"About what? Me?"

"Sort of," he admitted. "I dreamed I'd beat Red Skull, but I was too late, and we fell into the ice and I was frozen for seventy years. When I awoke, you were dead, and I was alone. They had this thing called the Internet."

"It sounds positively awful," Peggy said. "The Internet?"

"Yeah, it connected everyone to anybody, whatever they wanted."

"Like a telephone?"

"Sure, but on a tiny movie screen. And in color."

Peggy laughed.

"Imagine that," her eyes twinkled. "Colonel Phillips never knew he was choosing a dreamer."

"I think he always knew," Steve said with a wry smile, "That's why it wasn't him who chose me," he drew his hand across her cheek. He was never a man to be so forward in his affection, but he couldn't escape the feeling of longing and wrongness that sat in his heart, and he was scared that _this _was the dream, and he would wake on the morrow to find her gone.

He knew in his dream, he'd forgotten she'd ever existed, but he couldn't tell her that.

And at any rate, it didn't matter. He was awake now, and she was by his side.

"No," Peggy hummed, resting her head against his chest, "I guess it wasn't."

The song ended and they took their seats at a small table. A dying candle flickered between half-finished drinks.

They laughed and talked for hours, and when the bar declared last call, Peggy's eyes became slits in the reflected lights.

When she smiled, her face was cold.

"I am Chaos. I am the Creator of Worlds," she told him, her voice reverberating with the depth of ages. "Time means nothing to me. It can mean nothing to you. You may have Peggy back. Do you even like who you've become?"

Steve's heart sat on the table, and Peggy's doppelganger cut into it with a steak knife. She chewed the muscle daintily, her pupils narrowed and reptilian.

"I miss home," Steve admitted to this peculiar monster. He knew _this_ was his dream, and when he awoke, it would be back in that strange world, and he felt no better for it. "I miss Peggy," he said. "The _real_ one," he added, as it if mattered.

"You never have to miss me again," Peggy replied, her full lips brilliant and red, although it if it was from the blood of his heart or her lipstick, he couldn't be sure. "Say the word, and you'll right that plane and be home with me against before the sun sets. Think of the life you'll lead. This time yesterday, it will be grand children, not war books, laid out before you."

It was a tempting offer, and he looked down at the dying candle. "But what about the others?" He asked. And there were others, he remember, and they depended on him. But it all seemed very far away.

"Who cares?" Peggy raised her wine glass. The dark red liquid absorbed light and sound, and they were the only ones in the whole room. Distant strains of Ella Fitzgerald and Artie Shaw and all of the bands Steve had grown up filled the room, and he missed it all so much.

"They'll make do," she continued. "Loki will go to Niflheim, as was his destiny. The Avengers will fight and win, as they always do."

"My team," Steve said, and he could vaguely recall them. "Loki," he continued slowly. He didn't know why remembering them was so hard, he knew that he'd fought and died—and came back—for them. Leaving them now felt wrong.

"Ragnarök was never meant to come now," Peggy informed him breathlessly, as if conveying a secret. "It was only through the your machinations that it happened at all. Even with your serum, you would be dead long before the roosters sounded my arrival.

"What is the blood sacrifice of one small god," she continued, "for the happiness of your entire world? When I come, I should leave none unattended. Your people will feel my wrath most acutely."

Steve had but one defense, and although he'd used it countless times over the past few years, it still stood.

"Because," he said, "he is my friend."

"But he does not consider himself yours," Peggy sipped the wine, eyeing him over her crystal glass. "It is a waste of time and effort."

"No," Steve said, looking down at his own wine glass. A maroon face looked back at him. It was another Steve, and he was happy, grandchildren perched on his knees. He tore his eyes away from it to look back at the Serpent. "I don't think it is." He stood. "I have to get back—my team needs me."

Peggy set the glass down and eyed him.

"Are you sure? You will miss all of this." She motioned to the bar, and it was populated again with the glowing faces of his friends. They danced to _In the Mood_, and shouted for him to join them.

Steve knew what the right thing to do was, and which was the easy choice, and although Colonel Phillips' advice echoed in his ears—_The easy thing is seldom the _right_ thing, son-_he wished furtively to go home to Peggy and the live they had been meant to live.

He could see Colonel Phillips in the crowd now, the familiar scowl lightened slightly as he watched his troops. As if sensing Steve's eyes on him, he looked up, his gaze indiscernible.

If he went back, he would never meet Loki, would not be responsible for his destiny. The Avengers would win when Loki came to rule the Earth, and the death count probably wouldn't be any higher than it had been the first time through, but Steve knew for a fact that the old man who had refused to kneel in Germany would die.

"What about the people I've saved?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

"You will have never met them," Peggy said easily. "What do the deaths of strangers mean to you? Even as we speak, thousands of men and women are dying around your world. Do their deaths affect you?"

"No," Steve whispered. "But that doesn't mean they're not important."

She settled a hand over his, and even though he knew it wasn't her—it wasn't his Peggy—she felt the way he'd imagined she would. "There's no reason for you to have to bear the world's ills," she coaxed softly. "If things had gone just slightly different, you wouldn't even be here at all."

"You would change my destiny," Steve looked up sharply.

"It is an easy thing to do," she promised.

"No," Steve said, drawing back, "it isn't. Not even for you. I gave up Peggy for Loki," and he remembered it now, remembered the trade, remembered the honeyed Fairy Queen with her liquid eyes and smooth lips, and it all seemed like a lifetime ago. "They told me taking the serum wouldn't be easy, and they were right. I said goodbye to Peggy before. It wasn't easy, but it was the right thing to do. She waited. She waits. I am sure."

Peggy smiled wryly.

"You are too selfless."

"I'm not selfless at all," Steve said. As he moved, his dapper suit and tie bled into red and blue, and the smoky comfort of the old dance hall wavered, replaced by open wastelands and a cold sky.

Peggy remained sitting, incongruous against the ice.

"I may be the most selfish man you've ever known."

With that, he launched forward, feeling the ice slip beneath his feet as he brought his shield to bear, loosening it with a great swing of his arm.

Peggy dissolved and Jörmungandr reeled back, shards of a tooth flying into the gray air. The serpent's thrashing caused Steve to tumble, and he slid against frozen tundra before rolling to a stop against a crusted dune.

The shield came back just as he stumbled back to his feet, and he ran forward to meet the great serpent on the frozen banks of the Northern Ocean.

0o0o0o0o

Natasha watched Steve clash with the great monster, feeling utterly helpless. Unbidden, a story her mother had told her once came back to her.

"He was a great knight and famous across the land. All the ladies sought his hand in marriage, but he cared not for their scented silks and open smiles. He was the Dragonslayer.

'Why are you so stern and serious?' Lady Grace asked. She smiled easily, her eyes a bright green.

'I fight the last Dragon. When it is won, we will be safe.'

'You are only a man, how can you beat a dragon?

'Because I am only a man, but he is only a dragon, and one of us must win.'

"But the great knight did not win. Because he was only a man, and though men may fight with all the strength they carry in their bones, sometimes it is not enough. He died on that battlefield, and Lady Grace married his brother.'"

She remembered asking his mother what the point of the story was, if the knight couldn't win.

And although she couldn't remember her face, she remembered her sad smile and wise eyes.

"Because sometimes you have to try, even when you're sure you won't win. When everything seems at its very darkest and the odds are worst of all, you will. And you'll lose all the times you didn't think to try."

Every instinct she had told her to run. She had the window—she'd helped defeated the first wave of Jotunn. She had done her duty.

But as she watched the captain fight the great worm, its teeth alone twice as tall as Steve, she realized she couldn't leave him alone on the ice field.

"No," she whispered, starting across the ice. She couldn't let her leader and friend die out there alone.

0o0o0o0o

Loki watched as Laufey slid to his knees, his mouth dropped in surprise as a gaping whole stood in his chest.

"You are my son," he said. "We were meant to defeat Odin together."

"You lost the right you gave me away." He moved to turn away.

"You would leave Jotunheim unkinged?"

"I would do no such thing," Loki paused, and smiled at his father.

"You would be king," Laufey said, recognition dawning as he sank to his knees.

"I would," Loki said, readying his staff for the final blow.

"They won't respect you," Laufey said.

"They'll fear me," Loki said. "That's enough for me."

Laufey considered Loki with icy eyes. Blood gathered around his pale lips and his chest dripped the stuff eagerly, marking the dirty snow beneath them.

"You lie. Fear would have been enough for you once, but no longer. The Aesir changed you."

Laufey collapsed before Loki could deliver the killing blow. He stood over his father, watching the lifeblood drain onto the snow.

He knelt beside him, resting a hand against Lafuey's brow.

"You will be dead before the sun sets."

"Yes," Laufey croaked. "As I was always meant to be, though not at your hand."

"Then I will tell you this. You are right: I have changed, but it wasn't the Aesir who did it."

"That human?" Dying eyes slid over to regard Steve's form on the ice. "He is nothing."

"He is my friend," Loki said glibly, then changed the subject. "Tell me, should I end you?"

"Yes. Give me a warrior's funeral. I failed you as a father, I thought you weak. I was wrong. I would have been proud to call you my son."

"You're lying, and I will do you no such honor," Loki informed him as he stood. "I spent my life trying to prove myself to my real father, and I have failed him. But not anymore."

He turned away, ears deaf to his dying father's pleas to kill him in honor. His green eyes searched for Steve. He found him on a spit of ice, his blood running from a gash on his arm but his spine still straight, shoulders thrust back, his shield clasped tightly in his hand.

He saw Romanov sprinting towards Steve, Barton not far behind. Tony was a speck in the sky, growing closer as he sped towards that icy spit.

He did not know who would rule Jotunheim, and he found he didn't care and as he ran towards Steve, blasting the wayward giants that lumbered towards him. His place was there, beside Steve's side.

He had finally found a home. He wouldn't let him die.

The Hulk caught up to him. He gave Loki a look, strangely sentient. Without a word, he picked Loki up by his scruff and sped forward.

"You are puny," the Hulk told him.

"So you've said," Loki said, and he smiled despite himself.

The Hulk roared, and after a moment, Loki realized it was a laugh.

The ice was a blur around them, and within moments the giant pulled to a stop. He dropped Loki with more grace than he betrayed.

The Avengers all gathered around Steve. He looked slightly worse for wear, a cut on his brow bleeding profusely into his left eye, but when he smiled, the pain and weariness was gone.

"It's about time you all got here. I almost thought you were slacking."

"Who, us?" Tony's voice came over the comm, tinny. "Personally, I'm offended."

The Serpent reared its head.

Loki could see Steve had done considerable damage to the creature. Several of its giant teeth were completely broken off, and it bled heavily from numerous blows to its head. Despite the damage done, its eyes shone bright and malicious.

"I give you a fair fight as you stand in the Thunder God's place, but I offer no extension to your friends. I will smite them as they stand. Tell them to back off or I will render the skin from their bones and drink their blood."

"You can try," Ironman said as he landed carefully on the ice, mindful of his projected heat against the surface of the hoarfrost.

"I am the World Serpent, and you are a man. I will eat you."

Tony brought up his arm, blue light gathering as he summoned the energy to blast the leviathan. The pressure dropped around them as the consolidated burst of energy leapt forward, rushing towards their opponent.

Moments before it hit its intended target, a green beam of energy intersected it, and the blast went wide, flashing against the stormy clouds above before dissipating.

The team turned to see Loki standing off to the side, his staff raised, and a devilish grin on his face.

"Loki?" Steve asked. His expression remained stoic, but confusion swam in his eyes, and Loki felt his heart shift. He was taking a gamble, he knew. But he learned enough about cards from Barton to know when to hold and when to call.

So he ignored the captain and turned to Jörmungandr. For all his life, he'd sought purpose beyond the curses the Fates had thrust upon him, and he'd finally found it.

"I want to make a deal with you."

"You mean nothing to me, why should I make a deal with you?" The serpent rumbled, turning its great head to regard Loki with dead eyes.

"Because I know these humans, and puny though they may be, they'll give you a fight and it will deter you from your final battle. Let me handle them and I will leave that one," he nodded to Steve, "To fight as you see fit."

"And in return?" Jörmungandr asked. "I have no interest in making deals with puny things, even self-proclaimed gods such as yourself."

"My world is dying. Both my people are decimated and injured. The Fates may have left us to free will but it is a wretched gift. Allow me to fight by your side and defeat these tiny humans and in return, promise my survival so that I may rule in the new world. We know the Beginning and the End. This world was always meant to end, but a new one will rise in its stead. Give me providence over it."

He heard the team mutter curses, but he glanced back and inconspicuously itched his nose. He saw Barton's eyes widen.

When the man had first taught him cards, he'd warned him about "tells."

"You know—it's when somebody gives away their hand by doing something, like slicking their hair back or scratching their ear, or touching a finger to their nose. You do that one; you sort of itch it. "

"I do _not_." Loki had replied archly. Barton had shrugged.

"Whatever."

But he had been right—Loki had itched his nose whenever he got a decent hand, and it'd been his secret downfall the whole time.

Barton recognized it now, and Loki could only hope he'd pass the word on to Steve when all this was done.

He saw the ranger nudge Romanov, giving her some indecipherable look, but when she looked back at Loki, there was understanding in her eyes. She nodded, as if to say, _I understand what you're doing, but if you're going to do it you _must _see it through_.

The Serpent considered him, and for all his age and wisdom, to Loki's relief, seemed to have missed the transaction. Finally, he gave Loki a toothy smile, the cracked teeth dripping blood onto the ice.

"These are you friends, are they not?"

"They were a stepping stone, Great One. I needed them to get to you."

"No," he heard Steve whisper brokenly. "No! That's not true." Loki refused to turn around—knew that he wouldn't be able to keep up the face if he saw Steve's face.

"You are chaotic and ruthless. I like you. I agree to your terms."

"One last thing. I have a troublesome bond with this one," Loki indicated Steve, still refusing to look at him. "Severe it, and we are in agreement."

"It is done."

Loki felt the bond being rendered, and it was as if a part had him had been cut away. He clenched his teeth against the pain and bowed to hide his discomfort, clasping a right arm across his chest in what he hoped indicated subservience but was actually an attempt to staunch the emptiness that flooded his heart.

Just before Steve was gone from him, he felt his fear and sorrow at the betrayal. It was almost enough for Loki to give in, to fight together with the Avengers against the beast, and to hell with everything.

But Steve would die, and that was unacceptable.

"We are well met," he said, looking up into the gaping maw of the beast. He could only hope that Steve would one day understand what he had done was not betrayal.

"I saved you," Steve said from behind him, and although he didn't want to look, he found he couldn't deny the plaintive note in the captain's voice.

"Better fool you for trusting the greatest Trickster Asgard ever witnessed," he turned, searching for the haughtiness that had once defined him.

"I don't believe it," Steve whispered. For the first time since Loki had met him, he looked defeated. His complexion was sallow and worn. His shoulders were pulled forward, and although Loki liked to believe it was due to his wounds, he knew it wasn't.

_This is a ruse_, he wanted to say. _I would never betray you, you know me better than that_. But what he said was, "Believe what you want. It is your folly, not mine." He forced the words out, and wondered if they sounded as hollow to the Serpent as they did in his own ears.

But the Serpent watched the exchange with a vile grin, and made no notice of Loki's false words.

The sorrow on Steve's face shattered, and hate took is place as he roared and launched himself towards Loki.

Romanov pulled up quickly in front of him. She raised a hand to Steve's chest, forcing him to stumble to a stop. Her face was firm, her mouth thin.

"We'll fight him," she said, "Your battle is with Jörmungandr."

Loki watched the transaction with growing trepidation. He could see that the fight had gone from his bonded; _ex bonded_, he reminded himself; and he realized his betrayal had been the act that would finally break the man.

"He was my friend," his words were quiet, but Loki could hear them above the wailing wind all the same.

The team stood around them, tense and ready to battle. The World Serpent waited in the water, oddly patient for his final battle. But Steve and Natasha ignored them, two souls alone on the ice.

"You have never been betrayed before," Romanov guessed.

"No."

"It never gets any easier," the Black Widow supplied, "But you took a gamble, knowing the type of man Loki was. Is," she corrected. When she looked back at Loki, he could see understanding there. She was loyal to Steve, but she supported Loki's wager.

"All those people he saved in the fires of Colorado—"

"They were a means to an end. It is easier for a bad man to be a good man than a good man to be bad."

"I'm not _naive_," Steve told her tightly.

"I know that. If you were, we would never follow you. Fury put you in charge but if you hadn't earned it, we would never have listened to you. We've chased you into Hell and back. You are our friend and our leader. We'll cover Loki: you take the Serpent."

Steve considered, his eyes refocusing on Loki. The demigod stood tall, cloak fluttering in the northern wind, his staff clasped tightly beside him. He caught Steve's eyes and smiled.

"I hate him," Steve said, and Loki felt his resolve weaken. They could fight the beast together. They would die, and the worlds would burn, but Steve would die knowing Loki hadn't betrayed him.

But the captain had saved him countless times, had acted despite his best interests a million times more that that, and Loki knew he had to follow this through. It would be the only decent act in his admittedly wretched life, and he could not default now for his own selfish wishes. He managed to paste a smear on his face, but he could not bear to echo Steve's words of hate back to him.

"And that is your right. But your duty is to fight the Serpent. You are the only one who can."

Steve's eyes met Natasha's and he finally relented.

"Give him hell," he said.

Then, Steve turned away, his spine racked straight, his shoulders pulled back and his hand clenched around his great shield. He'd lost the cowl at some point in the battles, and his cheeks were ruddy from the cold, his jaw clenched and face stern as he appraised his enemy.

As Natasha faced Loki, her eyes lingering on Steve, she realized he was the Hero out of the legends her mother had told her as a child.

"Where are the heroes now?" She'd asked her frail mother, bent over the heavy book of Russian Myths and Legends. The Russian night was cold and dark around their slum of an apartment, and the bulb on her bedside table flickered with every gust of wind.

"They are dead," her mother told her sadly.

"Who killed them?"

"We did. They became anachronistic. There is no room for heroes anymore."

As Natasha readied herself for battle, she realized her mother had been right at the time. The heroes had gone, but one had been left frozen in ice. He was her leader.

She would fight for him.

0o0o0o0o0o

Natasha didn't know how to communicate to the rest of the team that Loki's act was a farce. She watched as Tony launched himself on Loki, all fire and fury, launching a volley that Loki easily deflected. The Trickster had fallen into a warrior's stance, his staff varying between offensive attacks and defensive deflections.

He'd trained with them, had watched them fight for years, and knew their moves. Natasha wanted to scream, "If he wanted to kill you, he would've done it!"

But there was no way to convey this without giving up the con, so she held her arm and pretended to be too injured to partake in the battle.

Curiously, the Hulk refused to engage, either. He slumped onto the ice, a bewildered, hurt expression on his face, and she wondered if he knew of the machinations of the god. Bruce looked between them with ascertaining eyes, and remained distant, a med bag clasped in his hand.

"He's better than before!" Tony shouted, darting around another blast. Any fool could see they were half-assed at best. If Stark weren't so caught up in the battle, he'd know it, too. She shot a glance over at Clint, and he gave her a despairing look.

"Tony, stop," she whispered into the comm, and the man pulled up belatedly. He glanced at her, the blast Loki aimed at him going wide and she could see his position shift as recognition dawned on him.

"This is a farce," he said.

"You have to keep it up," she said. "We'll join in, but—"

"—He doesn't mean it," Tony finished. Loki was still keyed into their comm, and she watched him nod slightly, knew Tony had seen it, too.

"_Son of a bitch!" _he swore heatedly. Then, as if it had just dawned on him, "What about Steve?"

"I'll handle that when the time comes," Loki told him, "Head left," he ordered, shooting a blast that Tony dodged easily.

"You didn't betray us," Tony breathed over the comm. "You're tricking the Serpent."

"Just keep fighting me," Natasha heard Loki order, and she knew what he was planning to do, and she thought she might be sick.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Steve knew he'd taken a few heavy hits. His muscles complained every time he lifted his shield. Blood seeped from a few close calls and part of his uniform had been scraped away in a particularly rough brush with the ice.

Steve knew that for every blow he received, he returned one kind.

Jörmungandr was slowing. His rows of teeth had lessened in number, tattered edges standing in the place of sharp teeth.

The ice was bright red, blood freezing almost as fast as it hit the ground. The world serpent bled from a great gash on its brow where his shield had his straight and true.

He had read the sagas. They went on for pages about who married who and what lineage they came from, but they'd hadn't told him how to kill his monster.

Winning seemed like an insurmountable task, even if the Fates had written it, but Steve had faced worse odds.

But for the first time in all his fights, he found his heart wasn't in it.

Jörmungandr roared and swiped out with a great sweep of his tail that Steve just managed to avoid. The shockwave sent him back across the ice. He quickly clambered to his feet.

"It is folly to fight me!" The creature roared.

"You keep saying that," Steve agreed swinging the shield out as a discus and watched as it caught the beast over the brow of its left eye. Blood immediately spilled forth, running over the creature's right eye.

Steve grinned as his defensive weapon hit true, and then scrambled away as the serpent roared fire. Without his shield to defend him, there was no way to deflect the flames.

He chanced a look at his team. Clint was down again. He was mainly a ranger, and close combat didn't suit him. Distantly, Steve was glad to see that Clint that whatever hit he'd taken hadn't done permanent damage—could see his distant figure struggling to stand on an ice bank.

Loki had convinced Clint to wear his armor in battle, despite the Ranger's loud complaints of its antiquated form. He'd promised that blasts would be deflected just as sure from any modern day weapon as they would from a magical blast.

It proved its worth now, against Loki's magical blasts.

Steve forcibly turned his mind away from his false friend, forced his eyes away from his teammates on the ice.

He rushed towards the great serpent, mindful of his footing even as he slipped slightly on a gathered patch of snow, catching his shield as it returned to him.

Jörmungandr was readying himself, great fire gathering in his gullet even as blood dripped into its maw and onto the ice.

Steve had read the sagas. He knew that Thor was destined to defeat the World Serpent with his trusty hammer.

The Fates had left them to their own devices, but the outline stood. He would win because he didn't have a choice.

Jörmungandr reared his head, ready to swipe at Steve and burn him to a charred skeleton in one blow.

Steve held his shield up to absorb the blow.

Steve had read the sagas. He knew he would kill the World Serpent and save the world.

He knew he would die in the process.

He was ready.

0o0o0o0o

Clint had gone "down" for the count when he feigned a hit from Loki. It had been a blast he'd taken willingly, but being thrown into an ice bank still hurt, and it took a moment to catch his breath.

So he had front row seats when he saw Loki's multiple fighting mirages disappear, and the god transpose from his position on the ice to standing before Jörmungandr as it's maw descended on the captain. The man struck a brave pose, knowing he was to die, and Clint watched as Loki pushed the captain back, surprise stark on his face, his mouth opened in a wide "O."

And even though they were going to make it through this alive, Loki wasn't.

And although he'd wished for Loki's death a thousand times, he'd not meant it in a long time, and he didn't want to watch as the teeth closed on the wily god, even as magic ripped the creature from the inside out. And he didn't want to watch as Loki was flung across the ice, his body hitting and rolling from the impact before skidding to a halt in a distant ice bank.

He didn't want to watch any of it, but he did, because he owed it to the god that had sacrificed himself for them.

0o0o0o0o

Steve saw his death before him, in the great jagged teeth of the descending maw of his foe. He thrust up his shield, a part of wishing him he could hide behind it. The greatest wish of any warrior was that his death would be fast.

Steve loosed his shield in what he assumed would be a last time. He saw the vivid armor of Iron Man hurtling towards him in attempt to knock the serpent off his course.

He steeled himself, ready for the blow that would end it and he was ready. Not for the first time, he was _afraid_. His muscles tensed, and he launched towards Jörmungandr, keenly aware of his surroundings. He felt the icy wind against his cheeks, could see the gray sky above him and heard the distant crashing of frozen waves.

It was oddly fitting. It had begun in ice, and it would end in ice.

He met the Serpent. Moments before his maw closed around him, the world exploded in a green light that was strangely reminiscent of the green of newly burst spring leaves.

The air crackled around him like the air of a summer storm and Jörmungandr reeled back, its teeth dripping poison and blood scraping past Steve, ripping uniform and skin as it yanked away.

The serpent had swallowed the great beam of light. Steve's first thought was Tony, and he wondered if Loki had been defeated so quickly. He was ashamed to realize he was upset by the idea, and he quelled the thought immediately. Loki had betrayed them—_him_—and he owed him no allegiance any longer.

He could've been with Peggy.

As the light pulled and torn at the throat of the leviathan, Steve realized belatedly that the light held no heat, no fire like the kind Tony's blasts let off.

Even as his back screamed in pain from the wounds exposed to the cold that had reached a fire-like intensity, Steve's eyes sought out Loki. He found him collapsed against the ice with smoke smoldering from his chest.

The world suddenly stood in sharp relief as Steve realized Loki's betrayal had been a ruse.

Ignoring the pain, ignoring the flailing serpent in its death throes, he flew across the ice, his steps finding sure footing even as the ice cracked under the weight. The repeated blows had done serious damage. The world was falling away around him, eaten by the hungry waves of the northern sea.

Behind him, the beast crashed into the ice, causing a small tsunami by its fall. Steve stumbled, quickly regaining his footing as he rushed towards Loki.

He could see Clint, walking with a heavy limp. Natasha was beside him, helping him along. They slowly closed in on Loki's figure.

Tony was at Loki's side first. He clasped his hand tightly around his side, blood leaking through the ragged, charred gap in his armor. A widening stain of blood spread out beneath him, soaking and freezing instantly against his green cloak, turning it black under the gray sky.

"You tricked us," Steve accused as he kneeled, lifting Loki's head up out of the ice. He looked up at Tony.

"Go back to the jet. Get it over here. Fast. Natasha, go with him. Ready the medical supplies and get two beds ready."

"I can go faster alone," Tony said even as he fired up his boosters.

"She's my bird, you can't fly her alone," Natasha argued.

Tony considered, then shrugged after a second, relenting.

"Come on, then."

They were off, leaving Steve alone with Clint and Bruce and the Hulk and Loki.

Clint was clearly favoring one side, and the Hulk wailed wordlessly, its cries of pain and loss whipped away by the wind.

"You tricked us," Steve repeated, pulling Loki up into his arms and away from the ice.

"I _am_ the Trickster," He had an ice-rash on his face when he'd hit the ice. His grin was bloody: his face smeared in bright red, to say nothing of the gaping wound that pumped a steady stream of life onto the ice. Steve pressed his hand against it, and knew it was a futile effort.

Steve had seen men bleed out before. It never ceased to surprise him how much blood a body had.

Loki met Steve's eyes.

"It's not severed, not really."

"What isn't?" Steve implored, shaking Loki's shoulders. "Soldier up, Loki."

But Loki didn't respond, and Clint reached out to touch his frozen fingers to the god's neck.

He didn't need to say anything: his face was telling enough.

Steve looked down at Loki. His body was still, his eyes staring sightlessly into the swollen sky. The blood that had pumped from his chest in regular intervals had stilled, freezing against his armor.

"He was my friend," Steve said through chattering teeth. "He saved himself for us and for this world. We will wait. I came back."

"There's no one to save him from Hel now," Clint said gently.

Steve gave Clint an appraising look, a strange glint in his eye.

"Maybe not," Steve said slowly, "We've been there before-"

"No, Steve. Not this time."

"He was my friend," Steve repeated, and now that the adrenalin of the battle was fading, he felt weak and his muscles shuddered and tears pricked his eyes.

"I know," Clint said.

Steve pulled Loki's body up into his arms, and there was no dignity in the tears the poured across frozen, bloody cheeks, but he didn't care.

"I know," Clint repeated, wrapping his arm around his captain and pulling him in.

CHAPTER END

A/N

In actual Norse myth, the cocks crowing (there's three: one in Valhalla, one in Niflheim, and one in Jotunheim) herald the beginning of Ragnarök.

The song, "The Best Is Yet to Come" is anachronistic. It wasn't written until 1959, and made popular by Frank Sinatra (but covered numerous times) But the opening lyrics are:

Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum

You came along and everything's startin' to hum

Still, it's a real good bet, the best is yet to come

Which is a little ominous, considering the origin.


	10. Eulogy (I'll Keep my Lanterns Lit)

Chapter 10 Eulogy

_Memory rushes in, then washes you away_

_I am losing you to the sea_

_I'll break from the weight of my mind,_

_but your ghost I will gladly bear_

_and with all your grief in my arms I will labor by singing light_

_I'll keep my lanterns lit_

_I'll keep my lanterns lit_

_If you had a single fall,_

_You just could not last forever could you?_

_You just could not last for me_

Lanterns Lit—Son Lux

Bruce had traveled Yggdrasil enough to know that Loki wasn't returning from this death, but when Steve asked for help in carrying Loki's body back to Asgard, he offered his services, knowing that Steve was hoping that Loki would somehow come back to them. (To _Steve_, but Bruce didn't say it.)

So they made a litter from the remnants of the wrecked ships and carried the god between them over the Bitfrost and back to Asgard, and they laid him to rest in the Hall of Waiting, and Steve stood vigil.

Some of the gods awoke, and some never did, and a massive funeral was held for Odin when Heimdall announced the All-father had passed into a sleep from which he would never wake. They set his body in a boat, his wife beside him, and packed with all the worldly goods they would need to see them through the afterlife, and once it had been loosed from its moors, Balder had shot a flaming arrow into the air, and when it landed it true, the ship had erupted in a brilliant glow. They had watched the burning vessel float down the river in the night, and when it was gone, they'd returned to The Hall of Asgard and feasted.

But still Steve waited at Loki's side, until the day Balder rested a heavy hand on the captain's shoulder. Bruce was there to see Steve look up, and all the veracity was gone from his startling blue eyes, and Bruce knew Steve knew what Balder had come for. And of all the things Bruce had witnessed in his life, he was sure he'd never seen such sorrow and despair, and he knew his captain had broken.

Balder helped Steve build the funeral pyre, and the whole team joined in, adding sticks and logs from the dying forest of Yggdrasil to help light the pyre. They all said something about the god, about his bravery in his last battle, about his difficulties in life, but all Steve said was,

"He was my friend, and I miss him."

The captain lit the pyre, and the wood took only incrementally, until the whole thing was afire and Loki burned.

Silver tears streamed down Steve's face, and his shoulders shook in silent sobs. He remained long after the fire had burned, and the team did not leave his side. When the embers had cooled, the captain grabbed Loki's charred skull. Looking at the Avengers hollowly, he marched across the newly green fields, silver under the full moon and to the forest of Yggdrasil.

Wordlessly, the team gathered the rest of the burned skeleton and followed the footsteps of their captain. And when they'd arrived at the foot of the World Tree, their captain had already dug a hole with only his hands, and they placed the bones within it, Loki's skull resting on the top.

"I've got the rest handled," Steve told them.

"Are you sure?" Clint said, but Natasha grabbed his wrist and shook her head.

The team left the forest, a string of lanterns against the dark, leaving Steve alone with the last remnants of Loki.

0o0o0o0o0o

Long after his friends had left for Asgard, Steve remained by Loki's side. He hoped that the god—his best friend—would return to him the way Steve had once done.

But the trilling of the night insects gave way to the warbling of the earliest birds, and when first light pierced through the boughs of Yggdrasil, shining bright on Loki's skull, Steve knew his friend would not be returning to him.

His eyes blurred by tears, he began scooping the dirt onto Loki's bones. His heart shattered when the first handful fell over Loki's skull. It stared back at him with soulless eyes, and Steve had to stop. Sobs wracked his body, and he sunk onto his knees beside the grave and wept.

"I'm sorry," he said, when the sun was at its zenith and he made himself begin scooping fresh dirt onto the skeleton once more. "I couldn't bring you back."

"I'm sorry," he said, when the last of the bones had been covered. "You were my best friend, and I thought you'd betrayed me."

"I'm sorry," he said when the grave was a mound and stones piled on top and his hands were scraped raw. "Because you are not beside me, and I don't know what to do without you."

And when the spring sun had finished it's bright arc across the sky and settled in the West, he returned to Asgard. Carrying the crown he'd been awarded, he placed it on Balder's brow.

"You carry it better than I ever did," he told Odin's eldest, and he turned to go.

"Wait—" Balder began, and Steve turned to regard the god with empty eyes. "Thank you. For everything."

"I don't deserve your thanks," Steve said. "If not for me, your family would be alive."

"No, Captain Steve Rogers, if not for you, we'd be trapped until the day we died. My brother knew this, and his death and your sacrifice set us free."

Steve nodded before turning to find his team, and he couldn't help but think none of it was worth it.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Steve told Thor, upon his awakening and his loud demands, what had happened during his sickness.

When the thunder god learned of the death of his parents and his brother, he'd grown silent. Great tears rolled from his face, and Steve cried with him.

But there was nothing cathartic in their sorrow, and when they slept that evening, they both did so with the knowledge that dreams were their only escape from reality. And if they'd slept longer than their team expected, caught in the happy trails of what-if's and once-had-beens, none had found it necessary to wake them.

In the morning, Steve prepared breakfast. If the eggs were rubbery and the bacon overcooked, nobody mentioned it.

0o0o0o0o0o

When Hel had grown well, she did something she'd never done before. Several weeks after Loki's funeral, when the grief was fresh in the captain's heart, she made the trip to Midgard and found Steve in Bennington, Vermont. A barely touched chai sat before him, and Hel pulled it towards her as she settled down. Steve looked at her with dull eyes; any surprised he may have held had died with Loki.

"You never showed," he said, relinquishing his mug willingly. She knew it was too sweet by half for the human, but that he'd ordered it anyway to remind himself of his bonded. She pushed forward the white porcelain mug of Early Gray she'd ordered, and he cupped his hands around it.

"No," she said. "I never did."

"Why?" He asked.

"A war is coming," she said. "You can't lose sight of it. But my dead will never be part of it."

"Why?" He pressed, but there was none of the passion she'd come to expect of the human, and her heart was sadder for it.

"Because you were right, Steve Rogers, about everything," she said. Before he could ask any questions, she pushed something across the table to him.

"You need this more than I do," she said, relinquishing the bone she'd held for so long.

Steve took it, and the bone dissolved into his hand, and his eyes grew distant as he relieved the memory he'd forgotten. And when he was done, his eyes were wet and he heaved a shuddering breath, and Hel wondered if she'd done him ill.

"Please," he whispered, "just leave me alone."

She nodded and stood. There was nothing in the world she could offer to relieve his sorrow, and she'd been erroneous to assume a bright memory from when he was five would soothe his wounds.

Before she turned to go, she settled a hand over his. The dull blue eyes that met hers were not the bright blue she'd become familiar with after a hundred thousand times of living his single day of happiness, and she couldn't help but think she was at fault. If she'd sent her dead to fight on his side, they may have won.

But she didn't think it would have made a difference, and she didn't think that telling Steve that Loki had died well and in honor would soothe the pain of his death, so she said nothing at all.

Ignoring the hand Steve cast across his eyes to hide his sorrow, she returned to her realm of the dead, where everyone was despairing, and she'd never known anything different.

END

A/N: I had a planned installment to finish up the series, but after debating with my wondrous and awesome editor, Val, I've decided not to do it. The story ends well here, and the last arc was something of a happy ending. BUT-this story has always struggled for readers and there's a lot of heartache involved spending this much time on something and having it so vastly underread. I may go back and reedit the last arc (it's written, but needs major work) one of these days, but I'm applying for PA school and busy with several jobs besides, and I have things to work on besides this story. My heart just isn't in it anymore.

For those of you who stayed around-thanks for all your love and comments. They meant the world to me.


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